The Artist
Playful curiosity, technical mastery and keen-eyed observation are the hallmark traits of Robert Elsdale’s work.
After studying Chemistry as an undergraduate, Robert decided to pursue a creative career, becoming an award-winning commercial photographer.
Over the next 35 years, Robert worked as a freelance photographer, based at his own London studio, working for clients all over the world - mainly advertising agencies for global brands, as well as album covers for some household names in the music industry.
“After university I came to London and assisted a number of advertising photographers. Gradually I worked my way up through the hierarchy until I was working with one of the best guys in Europe. In professional photography the guys at the top are total perfectionists and they have to be. Their technical and creative abilities are breathtaking. These skills are only acquired by an obsessive quest for the perfect image.”
After reaching the peak of his career as a photographer using film, Robert led the way in the emerging digital world and was also one of the first photographers to use digital technology and creative image manipulation.
“The arrival of the digital age was with us and I embraced it wholeheartedly. I was flown out to New York to see Adobe launch their new application, Photoshop, and the power it provided a photographer was breathtaking”.
Robert set up a studio combining his photography with digital image manipulation. In London at that time, he was one of the few high end photographers offering this type of enhanced photography. Across Europe and the USA he won considerable acclaim in awards and contests for combining photography and digital imaging.
Searching for a new creative challenge in later life, Robert remembered how much he’d enjoyed woodwork lessons at school. He’d always loved the natural qualities of wood and relished the meticulous process of transforming it into something new. He set up a workshop at his home in London and began the long journey toward mastering his craft.
Eyes to Wonder
After a lifetime spent peering through a camera lens, Robert has switched perspective to focus on the eye itself. He has long been fascinated by the ancient symbolism of these ‘windows to the soul’, revered across cultures as an emblem of protection, intuition and intellect. He says:
“I have always been fascinated by eyes. Endless numbers of words have been written about them. Endless numbers of people have been seduced by them. Looking someone in the eye is a western custom of honesty. Amongst some of his surrealist colleagues Rene Magritte immortalised eyes. I too wanted to enshrine them, but not in a painting but as a presence on the wall created in wood.”
His most recent project is ‘Eyes To Wonder’, a series of fine artworks depicting a single eye. He spent many years perfecting the techniques used to compose each unique design.
Robert painstakingly constructs each eye using thousands of segments of English hardwood pieced together to form a disc. In the centre is a pupil made from 6000-year-old bog oak.
“It took me nearly five years to learn how to seamlessly join 4000 pieces of wood together into one of my signature “eyes”. I experimented with many different glues, wood species, moisture contents and techniques before arriving at the result I wanted. It was only my experience as a photographer with an insatiable demand for perfectionism that got me there.”
At the time of writing, it is safe to say that no one else has achieved, or for that matter appear to have even attempted, anything like Robert’s ‘Eyes to Wonder’. They are truly unique, technically unrivalled and visually awe inspiring.