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Michael I. Robbie is a graduate of the elite London Design University. He currently works as a freelance artist and

multidisciplinary designer in the Northeast of England. He is fortunate to have worked in art, architecture, graphics, fashion, illustration, interiors, furniture, and product design. He was recently published in Australia’s Sneaky Magazine with the cover and four double spreads. He has endless enthusiasm for fashion and loves to merge the most disparate

of things into truly innovative and intriguing work.

You must have quite the vivid imagination to create the pictures that you do. Where do you get your inspiration?I find mostly from a process of exploration and experimentation. I get myself in the right frame of mind, and ‘get on with it’, or at least, that’s how it seems to happen best. I find it’s more about me removing the distractions as best as I can, and find your own path, ‘by walking it’ rather than thinking too much or talking about it. Certainly, I keep aware of what’s going on as best as I can, I’m sure I miss little. I’m in no doubt I’m impacted by those things I come into contact with, but it is mostly snack

food for the main event, the creative process itself. I hope I reflect the things my eyes have clapped on; only I’d rather allow my own (and that of any team or subject matter I might be working with) visual and intellectual sensibilities rule the final result. Emulation is important, it better helps us understand more advanced and sophisticated practitioners in whichever respective field, but I’d rather it merely informs my work rather than drives my creativity.

How do you define the word ‘art’?Well, to avoid the usual learn-ed responses, I suppose to me, art best exists in those moments when something happens unexpectedly, and we are consumed by it. The element of surprise, magic, intrigue, play, that happens every once in a while. Art is ‘one of those words’, means a lot of things to a lot of

THE IMAGINATION OF MICHAEL I. ROBBIE

Interview by Andrea Horne

people, and they often have their own distinct views on it. I endeavor not to define it, as any definition will change as I grow and learn, it seems frivolous and unhelpful to define it. I’m not good with defining myself, I have many consistent threads, which are certainly coherent, but they’re just subject to change over time through experience. Though I am inclined to believe that art is life, and life is art. There seems like there’s a finality in trying to define art as there would be life, though we’ll no doubt endlessly try to, I’m not convinced it’s a virtuous vocation. I guess I’m saying, I know it when I see it, and I am grateful, as a nightmare of endlessly painting the same canvas so to speak, simply wouldn’t do!

You are a graduate of London Design University. Tell us about your university days.

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