Duncan Robins is an England-born Canadian who resides with his family on the Pacific coast in rural, northern California near pounding surf and towering redwoods.  He works with reclaimed driftwood and iconic images drawn from his local environment and life experiences to create sculptures, paintings and illustrations that reflect Northcoast culture and nature’s beauty in a coastal-contemporary style.

The primary goal of the artist’s sculptures (Stick Figures) is to inspire people to revisit the joy of ‘cloud gazing’—to slow down and discover the hidden beauty in everyday objects.  Each Stick Figure is often constructed out of a maximum of three pieces of driftwood that are kept mostly ‘as found’.  Each Stick Figure is designed to prompt gleeful responses when viewers recognize its form, and then discover (or imagine) additional details.

The artist’s paintings and illustrations are often new takes on recognizable icons designed to bring color and warmth with calming simplicity to any room or wardrobe.  By constructing his designs out of very few shapes, additional color, texture and depth can be added physically by layering paint with spray, sponge and brush techniques or digitally with reduced photos of driftwood, rockfaces, graffitied concrete, or other surfaces.

The Artful Drifter was classically trained at Harvard and then Stanford, having been recruited for his sporting abilities. Prior to following his passion for art, he had a career leading creative organizations and inventing products, with over twenty-five patents in his name. The artist’s love for driftwood, painting and illustration began as a child while living in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and was rekindled when he and his family moved to Humboldt County, California in the early ‘90s.