Stephanie Robison is the Head of Sculpture at the City College of San Francisco. Robison was born and raised in Oregon, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Marylhurst University and a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Oregon. Robison creates abstract forms using everyday materials: fabric, plywood, lath, wire, steel, polyester fiberfill, yarn, thread, and wheels.
Robison’s work was most recently included in the 9th Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma Washington. She has shown her work at The Art Gym at Marylhurst University, Autzen Gallery at Portland State University, Worksound and Tilt Gallery and Project Space. Robison's work has been selected for several juried exhibitions including the Center on Contemporary Art Annual in Seattle Washington and more recently the 10th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition at the University of Hawaii.
I make sculpture that reflects my surroundings. I ask questions through the exploration and manipulation of materials. I use sewing, crochet and embroidery, as well as simple woodworking, and upholstering. The early years my grandmother and I spent together making forts out of dining room chairs, blankets, and the old hide-a-bed have had an influence on the way I think about and respond to the world today. In that way, the work is autobiographical but the intent is to communicate beyond my personal experience.
Through play, my Grandmother inadvertently showed me that objects could function in more than one way—exist as something other than what was intended. I strive to create objects that reference more than one thing—things are indescribable but remain familiar. Each sculpture reflects characteristics of everyday objects that we encounter in our domestic spaces and in the outside world such as: a bird or dollhouse, a mountain, a crane, a staircase, a boat, scaffolding, the legs of a piece of furniture, pillows, umbrellas, clouds, bricks, flags, the body, a cart, a sign, a barricade, a fence, a tower, an island. It is this edge between the comfortable, everyday aspects of both the forms and material, and their uncomfortable, awkward nature that interests me.
