Robert Race: Automata
7 July – 2 September
“I try to make the pieces stand on their own
as sculptural objects and their look at rest is important, but it’s
the movement that brings them alive. If you see them as static
objects you miss the point.”
Robert Race is identified on his passport as a
toymaker, but his work covers a wide range: moving toys for
children and adults; simple automata; kinetic sculpture; mobile
decorations for hospitals and restaurants; donation boxes and
interactive collections of toys for museums. He made the large
donation box, ‘See him paint’, located on our staircase.
Simple yet often witty movements distinguish the characters Robert
Race creates. Traditional moving toys have influenced him strongly,
and he has travelled in Europe, Indonesia, Mexico, India and Japan
in search of them: “I enjoy the way their makers have made simple
moving objects that exploit whatever material is available to them,
often in ingenious ways.”
Race’s moving toys and automata incorporate a wide range of
natural, re-used and recycled materials. Much recent work is
in driftwood, as collecting it gives him a good excuse for going to
the seaside. He likes the colours and the textures produced by the
effects of the sea and sun which give driftwood a finish that can’t
be reproduced in any other way.
Robert Race’s work is represented in the
collections of the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London, the
Japan Museum of Contemporary Toys, Okayama, the Arima Toys and
Automata Museum, Hyogo, Japan and the Arts Council (South East)
Craft Collection. Since 1991 he has been an active member of the
British Toymakers
Guild.
Robert Race, Last of the Moccasins
Robert Race, Man and Marble
Robert Race, Talking Birds