Coastal Signs is pleased to present Drawings, a solo exhibition by Peter Robinson opening Weddnesday 3 December 2025.

Drawings comprises five large scale works on paper from 2009, a period in Robinson’s output commonly referred to as Ack. The Ack drawings are the result of a very physical process; of quick, immediate gestures in space. They track an intense movement of loose fluid marks that sketch figures, flowers, chains and genitals that ooze or burst from one another. Shown together here for the first time, they reveal what appears to be a cathartic moment for the artist as ideas –old, new, borrowed, familiar and strange– spew forth on the paper.

The Ack drawings tap into something rudimentary in an art historical lineage; an archetypal visual language that has been the domain of artists across the past century from Joan Miro to Willem De Kooning, Barry Le Va to Jean-Michael Basquiat. Robinson has a long-standing fascination with the politics of imported legacies and a shrewd ability to engage both the physical and cultural ramifications of his chosen references. In the Ack series historic influences are reduced to signs and jumbled together to chart a liminal space in the artist’s practice between formalism and the unconscious mind.

As always, there is an element of comedy in Robinson’s work. In this case, it lies in the absurdity or paradox of making self-conscious ‘subconscious’drawings. The surfaces betray this awkwardness; each is a battleground between the id’s wild gestations, and the super ego’s hyper-awareness of the formal legacies they invoke.

Peter Robinson (b. 1966 Hakatere, Ngāi Tahu/Kāi Tahu) studied sculpture at the Ilam School of Fine Arts (1989) and is currently associate professor and Dean Māori at Te Waka Tūhura Elam School of Fine Arts and Design. Robinson’s work has been exhibited extensively in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. He was New Zealand’s representative at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), participated in the 5th Auckland Triennial (2013), 13th Istanbul Biennale (2013), 11th and 18th Biennale of Sydney (1998/2012), the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2018) and the 8th Baltic Triennale of International Art, Vilnius (2002).

Robinson’s work has been the subject of significant solo presentations in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and internationally, including the Auckland Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, Whangārei Art Museum, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Artspace Aotearoa, Stedelijk Museum, Artspace Sydney and the Institute of Modern Art Brisbane, among others. His work has been included in major international touring exhibitions including Continental shift at the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (2000); Toi Toi Toi: three generations of artists from New Zealand in the Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (1999); and Cultural safety: contemporary art from New Zealand at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (1995).

Drawings is Robinson's third solo exhibition at Coastal Signs, preceded by Forward Backwards (2021) and Driftwood (2023).