Jack Robinson creates ‘scannograms’. Working in a manner evocative of Man Ray, Robinson’s work reflects his pre-occupation with mechanical processes, form and space. Each work presents the viewer with Robinson’s abstracted interpretation of people and objects.

Robinson’s process is simple, yet strikingly ingenious. Using a digital flatbed scanner as if it were a camera, the artist creates a series of digital files. The individual frames are then painstakingly arranged to create a life-size image. The length of time Robinson takes to complete each work is an integral part of his artistic practice. A single scan takes around 40 seconds, with up to 150 separate scans needed to create one scannogram. This establishes an intimate bond between artist and subject, resulting from both the physical proximity needed to take the scans, and the necessary duration of this closeness.

The numerous scans Robinson takes are then delicately pieced together to create a luminous, broken image representative of time and space filtered through the artist. Each work displays these elements deconstructed then recreated in order to point beyond representational images.

I question and explore the space between the electronic and tactile; between the virtual and the real; between the distance of the machine and the inescapable element of human intimacy. What I achieve in the end is a life-sized portrait that reflects the steady glow of energy, simultaneously in flux and frozen in the artifice and fear of vulnerability, revealing something that is untouchable, unreachable.

Robinson studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh prior to relocating to New York. He has exhibited widely, including solo shows at the Gershwin Hotel, Fluxcore Gallery and Pittsburgh Filmmakers Media Arts Center. Group shows include exhibitions at the Governor’s Island Art Fair, Nine Eyes Gallery, The Studio at 620, the Lower East Side Arts Festival, Barthelemy Solomon Gallery and the Carnegie Museum.

His work is held in private collections in Prague, Cannes, Konstanz (Germany), Freiburg, London, Moscow, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, New York, St. Petersburg, Baltimore, Seattle, and Pittsburgh.