Nicolás Robbio’s work begins in an intimate observation of everyday things: common objects, situations, and systems. Attentive to the limits of what is close at hand, he produces a sensitive economy of images. Closely observed details are subtracted, and outlined by drawing onto or cutting into paper and other found materials. These elements are isolated or re-combined to occupy spaces of varying scale and dimension: from individual drawings to notebooks and rooms. They are overlaid between sheets of paper or glass; constructed as new three-dimensional objects, and drawn, incised, or projected on walls.

Consistently precise, deceptively simple, this method of representation is an intricate synthesis; it brings together diagrammatic outline, illusion and the material qualities of things. The effect is to underline the interstice between reality and representation and also to see the commonplace taken apart and re-assembled from elemental parts and qualities. By careful handling, selection and re-configuration, our objects of general knowledge are re-placed as carriers of personal memory and collective meaning.