Walk in to Red Studio and let yourself linger amongst John Z Robinson's forty-five prints. They capture intimate relationships and the grace of the male form; they play with art history; they record New Zealand's Deep South; they even toy with ways in which Australian myth infuses our understanding of local history.
Throughout this roving, informed catalogue of Robinson's fascinations, there is a constant sense of playfulness and subversion, of knowing pastiche. Serious fun is what we have with John Z Robinson: like the court jester in Shakespeare's plays, he is something of the street-and-court wise clown whose visual puns and unadorned honesty change the way we think.
With an introduction by novelist Laurence Fearnley, Red Studio is both an intimate portrait of an artist's development, and a portable exhibition, which readers can let their minds stroll through with the two best possible and companionable guides.