STU.ART ROBERTSON PEACE IN 10,000 HANDS
WORKS SUMMER 2017 ‘Scott’s Table’ photographed at Captain Scott’s Hut in Antarctica by Stu.art Robertson 2015
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“Humanity is enormously powerful. Our actions and thoughts today create our future tomorrow. Each of your actions & thoughts has a subtle yet profound ripple effect. We are each responsible for, and have the ability to choose, how we influence that ripple.� Stuart Robertson 2
ARTISTS BIO STUART ROBERTSON Born 1969, Auckland, New Zealand Contemporary artist, adventurer and humanitarian Stuart Robertson melds photography, sculpture, film, symbolism and social media with cast glass, neon light boxes & metal fabrication to create stunning large scale art works that speak profoundly to the viewer, causing a confrontation of ones own preconceptions and an acknowledgement of our similarities in the human condition. Creating a global conversation and ripple effect with more than half a million followers, he draws on the phenomenal power of modern social networks and instant border-less communication that makes mankind more connected than ever before in history. Robertson has developed and refined his practice over 30 years. His works have become highly collectable and now hang in many established art collections throughout New Zealand, the USA and Europe as his profile continues to gain significant momentum globally. The artists passion for seeing the world through an alternate view runs deep. His grandfathers were both prolific photographers with their own darkrooms and camera collections. Their love for the medium underpins the artist’s own obsession.
The Artist, in his Studio in Queenstown, New Zealand
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TRIGGER LIGHTBOX
The conflict and tapestry of his life was etched onto every surface of his body and he ensured it was ‘tagged’ on his surrounding environment. Trigger made for an imposing character who held the rose only for the hope of a better future for his children. He was shot and killed in Los Angeles in October 2014, as far as we know this was one of the last portraits taken of Trigger. 1500mm x 1000mm x 50mm Photographic transparency & colour changing lightbox with interactive controller. Edition 5 of 11 $20,000 5
EN DORSED
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PEACE IN 10,000 HANDS The global art project Stuart Robertson is photographing a single white rose, an ancient symbol of peace, in the hands of 10,000 people from every country on the planet. An evocative and unstoppable global art project, creating a visual provocation to challenge and reinvigorate the conversation for peace. Creating contemporary artworks which speak profoundly to our similariites in the human condition. Art is the borderless language, since the time of cave drawings. An idea, a spark now powered by modern social networks spreading as a living interactive global conversation for peace.
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Make Time Make Time Scottish beauty, Louise nestled in a glorious pink rhododendron bush in full bloom. The moment etched with the crisp bite of a Queenstown morning she shared the mantras Scottish beauty, Louise nestled in alifeglorious pinkTIME. rhododendron and inscriptions of her life as a reminder to live fully, to MAKE Everyday. Every bush in full bloom. The moment. “Peace meanswith finding true happiness Make time, live life” she shared the mantras moment etched the crisp bitewithin of a yourself. Queenstown morning
and inscriptions of her life as a reminder to live life fully, to MAKETIME. Everyday. Every moment. “Peace means finding true happiness within yourself. Make time, live life”
1500mm x 1500mm x 70mm Hand blown glass with pink coral neon, Giclée archival print, Acrylic box mount Limited Edition of 11
1500mm x 1500mm x 70mm Hand blown glass with pink coral neon, Giclée archival print, acrylic box mount Limited Edition 3 of 11
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$18,500
Illusion I have loved neon since a child and always wanted to work with it. In this series I identify people with meaningful phrases and explore the lettering on their fingers. Once the image is taken then the artwork is created with neon over the letters on the persons fingers. ‘ILLUSION’ is from my second neon series. I was once a magician for 14 years and ‘ILLUSION’ is a nod to where I came from.
Born Free I have loved neon since a child and always wanted to work with it. In this series I identify people with meaningful phrases and explore the lettering on their fingers. Once the image is taken then the artwork is created with neon over the letters on the persons fingers. All the first editions of the first four neons sold out. ‘bornfree’ is is from my second neon series. I desire a free sprit and ‘bornfree’ resonates with me.
1000mm x 1000mm x 70mm Hand blown glass with pink neon, Giclée archival print, Aluminium box mount Limited Edition 2 of 11 $10,000
1000mm x 1000mm x 70mm Hand blown glass with pink neon, Giclée archival print, Aluminium box mount Limited Edition 3 of 11 $10,000
True Love It was not a stormy day in New Plymouth, but the shadow of the mountain cast the drama and made the perfect background for Nikki. A colourful life, with a pure heart. Your one love. Truelove.
Love Hate The hands of an LA Gang Member. Location and identification confidential. 187. I am always observing and often intrigued by the choices we make as individuals to protect ourselves through adornments, material possessions, verbal and emotional armor. We all put up various forms of walls to tell the world how far away from those walls we want people to stay.
1000mm x 1000mm x 70mm Hand blown glass with blue neon, Giclée archival print, Aluminium box mount Limited Edition 4 of 11 $10,000
1000mm x 1000mm x 70mm Hand blown glass with red and blue neon, Giclée archival print, Aluminium box mount Limited Edition 2 of 11 $10,000
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LIGHT
Peacock Hot rocking beats, LA, Century City Robert Keith designs jewellery, fashion and art. He wears his art. He was an enormous amount of fun to work with on this photo shoot, amenable and adventurous with the rose and what peace meant to him. “peace means to me the collective state of conciousness when humans, in their natural state, stripped of all external stimulous, material and circumstances, reach the common vibration of a harmonious and undescribable understanding in relation to the state of reality in which they are travelling through� 1500mm x 1000mm x 70mm Photographic transparency & archival lighbox, powdercoated aluminium frame in white Limited Edition 1 of 11 $10, 000
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BOXES
Installation view of Trigger Lightbox
Illuminated artworks that captivate and command a space. To be in the moment. A gaze held, ambient & emanating with the force of life.
“Only the most powerful
and poignant portraits are selected and produced as archival museum lightboxes.�
It took Robertson eighteen months to perfect the fabrication, lighting and final design of his lightbox series to create a museum experience transportable to the walls of a home. He produces two lighting styles using the latest LED control options. Still white light or fully controllable with interactive and programmable colour changing sequence options to last a lifetime.
Crated, ready to hang with aluminum mounting brackets, providing a flush wall mount. Plugs into any standard NZ 3pin power socket. Produced as 1m x 1m x 70mm and 1m x 1.5m x 70mm 11
“Images generate emotional sub-
conscious responses in us before conditioned intellectual objectifying of what we see gets in the way. After many viewings, I continue to find Robertson’s images emotionally moving; some profoundly so. These works seem to cut straight to the heart of what it means to be human and gently resonate it back to our own reality”
Mark Hutchins-Pond A luminescent viewing experience. These stunning artworks are created using metallic light sensitive photographic paper, acid free aluminium and museum grade acrylic. Produced to the highest standard to maximize the depth when the light hits and reflects the colour saturation. Created, ready to hang with aluminum mounting brackets. Limited Editions of 11 1000mm x 1000mm x 9mm
We Love Too Slow 1000mm x 1000mm Facemounted Giclée archival metallic photograph print $8000
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The Haight 1000mm x 1000mm Facemounted Giclée archival metallic photograph print $8000
London Blue 1000mm x 1000mm Facemounted Giclée archival metallic $8000
EXIGLASS
c photograph print
Emptiness in Harmony 1000mm x 1000mm Facemounted GiclĂŠe archival metallic photograph print $8000
Bound 1000mm x 1000mm Facemounted GiclĂŠe archival metallic photograph print $8000
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His Holiness The Dalai Lama Before taking this photograph The Dalai Lama blessed the project and the rose. After I took this photograph he blessed me. ‘The planet does not need more successful people. The planet needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds’. His Holiness The Dalai Lama PLEXIGLASS 800mm x 800mm x 9mm Gicleé photographic print on metalic archival paper. Plexiglass face mount Edition of 11 $6,800 LIGHTBOX Also produced at 1000mm x 1000mm x 70mm Photographic transparency & archival lightbox, powdercoated aluminium frame in white. Edition of 3 POA
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Wisdom of the Harakeke “I believe in another beginning. Time, things don’t happen quick, you move with caution because if you rush across the ground you’re liable to stub your toe on a rock. When you pick a flower you make sure it’s not going to fall apart as soon as you pick it”. Whero o Te Rangi, Kuia, Parihaka, Taranaki, New Zealand 800mm x 800mm x 9mm Gicleé photographic print on metalic archival paper. Plexiglass face mount Edition of 11 $6,800
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His Way of Life While travelling through Papua New Guinea I visited incredibly isolated Highland tribes and some of the remotest islands in Bismarck Sea to the East of the Philippines. There were children who had never really seen Europeans and they would run away. This was not on any tourist map or trade route. On the Island of Blup Blup I photographed Stallon and his family. Their way of life was simple and completely at one with the environment. They call it a subsistence life where they live off the land and out of the sea only. They have no currency apart from trade. Mother nature provides everything, including what the sea washes up on their deserted beach. 600mm x 1350mm x 9mm GicleĂŠ photographic print on metalic archival paper. Plexiglass face mount Limited Edition of 11 $8,000 16
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Ode to Lascaux Low light cast crisp black shadows on the sun scorched Sepik River bed like the pigment of a cave drawing. Papua New Guinea’s Central Range spills down through the northern foothills to feed the Sepik floodplains. These foothills are riddled with more than 200 limestone caves which contain a variety of prehistoric and recent cave drawings. The largest collection of cave art in the southern hemisphere, few Westerners have ever seen. The rock paintings are part of a continuous culture of representation from the very first tribes people who settled in these hills more than 20,000 years ago to their descendants, whom I spent time with.
800mm x 1120mm x 8mm Gicleé photographic print on metalic archival paper. Plexiglass face mount Limited Edition of 11 $7,500
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Stuart Robertson, Peace in 10,000 Hands Exhibition. Pataka ART+museum 2015 20
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Greg T Brown Actor & Model, Los Angeles. Where the mind goes the man follows “Peace is a state of mind” 800mm x 800mm x 8mm Gicleé photographic print on metalic archival paper. Plexiglass face mount Edition of 11 $6,800
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Bird of Paradise The Highlands of Papua New Guinea. A location steeped in adventure. Ancient tribal traditions living in the dense rain forests with wild tales of cannibalism and swift vengeance. Six million out of the seven million population live in remote parts of the country in tribes. Living a self-sustainable, natural lifestyle untouched by money, electricity and any modern conveniences. My time in the Highlands was intrepid, memorable and very challenging for so many reasons. Each tribe has his own traditional costume made from the local plants, birds, animals, shells, mud and pigments of the land. 800mm x 800mm x 8mm GicleĂŠ photographic print on metalic archival paper. Plexiglass face mount Edition of 11 $6,800
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100% of all 10,000 Hands p proj “I’m inspired by the belief that art is intimately
entwined with the human condition and has the power to challenge and create change. I believe art can break down barriers. It can move effortlessly across borders and speak profoundly to the heart of mankind and spark emotion and inspiration in every one of us.” Stuart Robertson
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l art sales to Peace in power this global art oject to completion & creates the legacy.
The Artist, on the road building the legend, photographing in Udaipur, India, 2013
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Stuart Robertson exhibition
opening speech infront of ‘The Exquisite Clarity of Standing Together’ 7m x 2m wall installation P.O.A.27
BOX MOU
NTED
Nothing between the viewer and an unguarded moment of humanity. Famous or infamous, notorious or beloved, these portraits are selected to become iconic box mount artworks to allow the viewer to participate in the moment. Large. No glass. Approachable. Breaking conventional barriers, moving the viewers experience across borders, beckoning from passive engagement of the viewer to a more intimate experience. Standing in the moment. Bare. Honest.
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Ricky Gervais 29
Grant Bowler This striking image is the culmination of a walk around venice beach on a hot so cal day, talking about peace, talking about home & living in LA as an actor. Grants passion for peace shows through the strength of his masculinity and the protection of a simple truth. 1500mm x 1000mm x 50mm GicleĂŠ print, aluminum box mount Edition 2 of 5 $9100
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Hurricane Seven days with no power, no hot water, Hurricane Sandy had devastated New York in October 2012, there was no time for fixing nails and she was so embarrassed, but her hands and this image captured the rawness & emotion of the plight of the city. 900mm x 900mm x 50mm GicleĂŠ print, aluminum box mount Edition 3 of 11 $7500
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An invitation to partake and view the seemingly impossible. A quest so simple, subconciously attainable yet always just out of reach. Robertson further explores the dual symbolism of the white rose; peace and pure love; through an interactive experience, like peaking inside a forbidden treasure box offering the
SCULPTURES ‘i n f i n i t e l o v e’ impossible opportunity of infinite love. The highly polished surface of the artwork reflects the environment and the viewer. Three small apertures glow a soft red and invite the viewer to partake in this alternate reality.
Infinite Love Free standing sculpture Marine Grade stainless steel fabricated one way with mirror and neon 500mm x 500mm x 500mm on a 900mm x 500mm base Edition of 3 $38,000
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SCULPTURES ‘perforated love’
Perforated Love Highly polished hand crafted stainless steel replica tank barrell modelled of the tiger tank with the inscription of the meaning of Namaste engraved on its surface. 4300mm x 100mm on tripod leg base Limited Edition of 11 $25,000
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I honour the place in you where the universe resides. I honour the light, love, truth, beauty and peace with in you, because it is also within me. In sharing these things we are united, we are the same. We are one. (Namaste)
Many of Robertsons photographic subjects who have held the rose have said ‘Peace is the absence of war’ or ‘Peace is worth fighting for’. This oft cited contradiction inspired the the artists deeper exploration of the concept of interdependance for either state to exist and their physical manefestations.
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Green Piece Hand carved cast lead crystal pistol. Inscribed with the words “we are the same, we are one” Edition of 21 $6200
CAST CRYSTAL ‘Guns and Roses’
Crystal Rose Hand carved cast lead crystal rose. Cast from the very Rose that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu have both held and blessed. $900 each
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An exploration of polarities and interdependence to exist The impermanent fragility of a white rose The physical force of a loaded gun Peace | Violence Light | Dark In Robertson’s latest sculptural series ‘Guns and Roses’, the artist explores the polarities, the ‘tension between’. Day does not exist without night, joy without sorrow, life without death, peace without non peace. Casting both symbolic forms in lead crystal, Robertson playfully forges a union of two symbolic opposites to exist within a solitary form. The infinite now contained within the finite. The rose (cast from the very Rose that His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu have both held and blessed) takes on a permanence and density, the glock gun takes on a fragility and transparency. Both shattering into a thousand pieces if dropped. The fragility of the human emotional construct of peace. The artists belief that the key to peace is in your hands.
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FEATURE WORK
LARGE SCAL
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‘The Exquisite Clarity of Standing Together’
7120mm x 2100mm (dibonded works each 400mm x 400mm)
Meditative and intoxicating,‘like being hit by a train’ as one viewer described walking into the ART Museum and seeing the feature work ‘The Exquisite Clarity of Standing Together’. Displayed in a visually powerful uniform black and white grid that covers nearly fifteen square metres. Closer inspection of the work causes provocation on a profoundly subconscious level, inviting an altruistic state of being. Viewers return again and again. Absorbed in the moment, 85 people,18 countries, differing backgrounds, choices, opinions, cultural & spiritual beliefs, economic & life stories of hardship to fame rendered equal & timeless with the act of proferring the same symbol of peace. Standing together, vulnerable in their human condition. Each work, hand printed, hand di bonded, mounted and hung. Attention to every detail. 7120mm x 2100mm Dibond Giclee on aluminium substrate Edition of 5 P.O.A
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Private
COMMISSIONS
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Aro Ha is world renouned, a retreat in the heart of the South Island, New Zealand. Recognised by Conde Nast as winner of readers awards, as well as recipient of architectual awards, featured in Vogue and dozens more publications. It is fast becoming known as the gold standard in retreats globally. Aro Ha commissioned Robertson to produce a work that would be a genuine conversation piece to hang in the very heart of their lodge.
Robertson is available for private commissions to produce art works that compliment and speak to your environment.
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The compelling underlying drive to photograph 10,000 people from every country on the planet. A snap shot of humanity right now. Every country, every colour, every religion, every race.
the world The similarities in the human condition highlighted when standing together and the thin veil that shields us from our child-like self. The self that yearns for and deserves peace. A safe passage. A safe life. This compelling drive that sees Robertson in the most unlikely scenarios all over the world from being questioned by the Secret Service in the United States to the Iraqi Undercover Military Police. From doing yoga with Demi Moore to birthday celebrations with Ringo Starr.
Stuart Robertson photographing in the Dry Valleys, Antarctica
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Daryl Hannah “I try to love life and illuminate the interconnectedness of all living things. Peace walks hand in hand with justice & = live & let liveâ€? - Los Angeles, California 1500mm x 1000mm x 50mm GicleĂŠ print, aluminum box mount Edition 2 of 7 $8,500
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Contact
Stuart Robertson stu@peacein10000hands.com +64 21975597
Semele Robertson semele@peacein10000hands.com +64 21866415