I am attracted to enigmatic places that possess a sense of strangeness and mystery. Rows of prefabs, parks at dusk, industrial units whose purpose in life is unclear - why should places so ordinary possess such psychological hitting power? Maybe it's to do with memory. I grew up on a succession of RAF bases and there was nothing beautiful about them, just hangars and stained tarmac, but they were exciting, they suggested a world of action and adventure so that now, when I see for example a humble concrete hut, something is triggered off inside me and I feel a sense of possibility. Maybe it's the cinema. Certain types of environment have become so familiar through film that maybe under the right circumstances even the most featureless street or inner city shopping mall can assume the wasteland glamour of film noir. The subject matter of my work is ordinary and everyday so I paint it in a straightforward, off-hand way without any high degree of finish. The paintings also lack clear definition: I don't want them to be too explicit since a sense of mystification and something unresolved is one of the things that appeals to me so strongly about the subject matter.

Showcomplex - D Roberts: Artist Statement
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