Fluidism- A new way to see. A new way to be.

The ‘fluidity’ of sculpture (a non-binary approach to art and life).

It has been ten years in the making. A philosophy that allows its creator, Robert Marshall to approach and understand and live within the complexities of our modern world. Ideas and understanding he has made visual, tactile and physical through the medium of sculpture and fine art. Fluidism, as the author have come to name his theories (and in accordance with his manifesto) is a non-binary approach to art and life. In Fluidism the understanding is that everything is connected. Everything is fluid, everything flows. By accepting these simple facts, it must also mean that nothing can be isolated, solid nor stationary and therefore by definition it must also take on the acceptance that nothing is complete nor polarised. Nothing is or can be binary. And if nothing can be binary then everything must exist within the spectrum of polar opposites, everything is diverse. And with diversity comes uniqueness and interest. With this understanding, all is inclusive within the fluid spectrum of colour, hues and shades that exist between black and white and light and dark. Fluidism give credence to the unseen worlds hidden within, as well as possible worlds that can be as well as those that should not be. 

It is hoped that this uniqueness and diversity and fluidity of thinking can be seen within the portfolio of the artists’ work, both in the subject, the chosen material and the technical skill, giving the work an overall individual stylistic variability with the aim of making lucid the opaque.

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His latest works experiment with the concept of ‘fluidity’ and non-binary thinking, exploring not only the space within two opposite poles but also beyond the set ‘parameters’ and into the extremes. One such body of work explores the medium of paint as sculptural material and paint as structure and form (by using the ‘scabs’ that form in the tins of old household paint pots to make a sculpture and push this form to its extreme, in some case layering thousands of ‘scabs’ on top of one another to achieve freestanding forms of pure paint!).

Other examples of Marshall’s work include a 4 meter high temple of his own consumed rubbish in his ‘Pursuit for Happiness’; becoming half man, half Artificial Intelligence machine; achieved the impossible and carved chalk into cheese; invaded an island off the coast of Dorset and declared it his own; and has even built a gallery within a gallery to expose its conceptual parameters. Using fine art as a tool he has experimented in the designing of sentimental machines, developed spectacles that give proprioceptive capabilities, designed helmets that give 340 degree ‘pigeon’ vision; converted London road traffic into a musical score, and a developed an exercise machine that resonates to the space within its environment.