News / Rock artist’s café expo
A LERWICK artist known for concocting eye-catching paintings for the local rock music scene is to hold a month-long exhibition at the Peerie Shop Café.
Dirk Robertson will display a number of pieces he has created over the last couple of years at the Lerwick cafe until 25 November.
The exhibition was launched on Thursday night with a public opening, with live music from funk band The FB and local shop Beervana providing refreshments.
Robertson has a reputation for creating intricate and enveloping paintings that burst with life to promote his music podcast and promotion venture Heavy Metal Buffet.
A number of these posters – largely created to plug alternative bands – will feature in the Peerie Shop Café display, alongside one new piece.
“I deliberately chose this selection of pieces as I feel they show where I am currently at as an artist and where I have been before,” he said.
“The selection was also chosen with the Peerie Shop clientele in mind, excluding the more typically grim themes I often gratuitously explore.”
Robertson, who works with woodland as a dayjob, says album artwork has always inspired him – and it’s this love of music that has brought him to prominence in Shetland.
He creates original pieces by hand for every band playing at the annual Heavy Metal Buffet festival, which amounts to around 20 paintings, in the basement of his Lerwick house.
“From a young age admiring the artwork on albums I always wanted to produce artwork for rock and metal bands,” he added.
“To be able to now be associated with the Shetland music scene has been a huge achievement for me to realise.
“Outside of the Shetland music scene I enjoy working on murals because of their sheer size and the impact that creates.
“As a matter of fact I will be spending all of November based in Aberdeen working on a mural in Krakatoa, which was formally known as The Moorings bar.”
While Robertson’s artistic profile has been brought to the fore in recent years, it seems creativity is something that has been on his radar for decades.
“I feel art is in my blood,” he said. “When I was an infant, and unbeknown to my parents, I proceeded to eat a block of blue watercolour paint leaving behind a trail of blue nappies for the following days.”
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