Description
“On the Borderline” is two books in one: It’s an autobiography by Robin Storey, the musician best known as Rapoon. And it’s a comprehensive survey of his parallel career as a visual artist. Rounding out the package is compact disc containing all-new recordings, attached inside the front cover.
Robin Storey’s autobiography starts with a unvarnished review of his early years growing up in a hardscrabble village near the Scottish border, in the far north of England. He was often cold and hungry, dressed in second-hand clothes, foraging for wild mushrooms, or turnips and carrots pilfered from fields near his home, where he shared meals with his parents and four siblings. His introduction to art preceeded his experiments in music, both of which are examined in detail. He covers his days playing football, attending art school, meeting girls, dabbling in improvisational music, working as a graphic artist, living in a variety of precarious situations, and eventually finding himself making music as a co-founder of Zoviet France. Gigs around England and Europe followed, along with marriage, fatherhood, and a more settled existence.
The majority of the book is given over to a comprehensive review of Robin Storey’s output as a visual artist. His paintings regularly appear on the jackets of his albums, but only a fraction of his work has been widely published, and the second portion of “On the Borderline” is filled with page after page of rarely seen paintings and charcoal drawings. The images are grouped chronologically, allowing readers to appreciate the progress and evolution of his artistic style. There are more than 100 pages of color and black-and-white images, starting in the 1970’s and carrying forward into 2020’s. It’s an enchanting collection of sensuously drawn charcoal nudes, abstract or impressionist patterns evoking primordial landscapes, alien voyagers, and vibrating hallucinations usually visible only to ancient shamans.
“On the Borderline” is a hardcover book with 176 pages, most printed in color. Limited edition of 400 copies.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.