The Steven Campbell Trust were delighted to attend the Directors private preview event at Glasgow School of Art on Thursday 28th May. It is always exciting visiting GSA each year to view the work of all the talented artists’ exhibiting their degree shows at the School of Fine Art. We would like to thank GSA for extending this invitation which was greatly appreciated, particularly Julia Malle, Academic Support Manager, The Glasgow School of Art.
Each year we attend the Degree Show to make our annual award of The Hunt Medal, to an artist who we believe demonstrates poetic creativity in their work. After much discussion of the exciting work on show, we were unanimous in our appreciation of the work of Evie Robinson and are pleased to announce that Evie is the 2026 recipient of our Hunt Medal award. The Steven Campbell Trust would like to wish Evie much success in her future career.
Evie Robinson: Artist’s Statement
As an artist, my practice centres around my racial identity, by merging themes of culture, migration, memory, and storytelling. I use painting and printmaking to explore representations of West African communities. My paintings combine surreal figures, patterned backdrops and chaotic greenery, blurring the boundaries between cultural histories and memory. Here, playful, dreamlike worlds are formed that exist somewhere between past and present. My practice is an evolving process of sharing stories, of real and imagined west African histories.
Narratives fuel my work. Currently, I have been reading Yoruba folklore and creating oil pastel drawings inspired by these stories, combining and reworking elements from multiple drawings to develop references for my oil paintings. I mark the canvas through layered painterly techniques between areas of open space to evoke the instability of memory and reconstruction within my process of ‘Fictioning’, allowing the viewer to peer through the gaps within these constructed narratives. Executed in a distinctive vibrant colour palette, with fluorescent-coloured grounds of pink, yellow and purple to bring depth to the surfaces of my marks, reanimating these historical narratives through a contemporary language. Through this, I revive these stories, transforming them into celebratory pieces that invite viewers today to engage with them in a new light.
Ultimately, I aim to create immersive, otherworldly anachronistic spaces that invite viewers to experience my narrative wholly, transporting them into the setting of a Nigerian Community. Although my work holds historical context, it does not seek answers but instead invites the viewer into an imagined space where they can interpret and learn what they believe they see.
Evie’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/evierobinsonart/
Interview by Carol Campbell with Evie Robinson, GSA, 2026:
A selection of Evie Robinson’s work on show at the Glasgow School of Art:
The Steven Campbell Trust 