Drench

Drench by Ro Robertson is a sculptural exploration of the ‘terrain of the queer body’ which welds the figure and the seascape as one.

Five steel forms ranging from reclining to upright ascend in height up to three metres tall. Inspired by the tidal zone the weathering steel is painted in blues up to a ‘tide line’.

The tidal zone is an area of the coastline that becomes submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide. For Robertson, this constant cycle of dehydration and rehydration creates a space of transformation and renewal. The semi-abstract figures of Drench – which exist between the sea and the body – offer an expanded reading of the body free from binary and rigid understandings.

En plein air drawings made of the Land’s End peninsular inform the painted surface of the steel which is also marked with imperfections in the rusted patina made with seawater. The internal and negative spaces relate to phantom spaces of the body – as an inner landscape – connected with the hidden spaces of the coastal landscape.

“There are parts of our bodies and genders that aren’t visible, as if they were under water. There are spaces that can’t be easily defined, that are forever shifting”.