“What fascinates Bob Camblin is clearly the complex and very delicate relationship between image and language. All his works have strange or fantastic titles – titles that considerably deepen or modify the perception and understanding of the picture. His landscapes, which are often vistas, with nothing mysterious or intriguing about them, can even at first sight pass as conventional works; but they take on a quiet different connotation when under scrutiny.

Examined more closely A Collection of Sketches contains a universe that reveals itself very slowly. This collection consists of 1778 sketches done over a four decade period roughly from 1970 to 2010. Many will now be recognized as maquettes or bozzettos, French and Italian for rough drafts of an unfinished painting.

“In other words, Bob Camblin is an artist who does not to give everything away immediately. His pictures are constructed like devices for ensnaring the viewer’s attention, seeking to capture and imprison it; his aim is to fascinate the viewer and persuade her to adventure further and further into the terra incognita of speculative experience.

“His delicate chromatic treatment, the sophistication of his optical pitfalls, and the deep subtlety of his allusions make each of his works an intricate device for simulation. His claim on our attention is through his skill in allusion and deception. He traps us, and leads us into a poetic continent in which words and figures unite to set up stratagems from the other side of the pictorial mirror; they reflect back into ourselves, hinting at the secret of their language but never really revealing it. ~ Gerard-Georges Lemaire, translated from French, Cinq x Cinq Exhibition

This NFT includes 1,778 of the original maquettes or bozzettos typically on 8 x 11 sketch paper, 1,778 digital files, and reproduction rights.