Albeit mostly beyond words, art is oxymoronic, a paradox to any who assume it is a medium of discourse like spoken language. Artists ask first ‘what would it feel like to make that just like that, or instead, like this?’, not what most viewers ask: ‘what is the message?’ The latter question artists ask of other artists’ work.

Almost never said is: ‘Art’s prime purpose is to show that insanity can be deployed in healthy, constructive, productive ways, and, oddly often, is beautiful; if only more people could see their non-transgressive obsessions or self-doubts about what seems a pointless waste, but which can be redeemed when given an artist’s mindset’.

As Japanese artist Kukiko Mitsui says, ‘In all of it [art], apart from technical skills, the only virtues remaining are ethics like in music or dance, nothing else!’ When conceptual art is merely highly efficient symbolism, it may be no better than good design. The subjective, emotional and sentimental are perennially important.

Works shown here are some of Robert’s paintings, 1968-98, from exhibitions in museums, galleries and at festivals in Belfast, London, Hamburg, Kassel and Dubrovnik.