Between 1999 and 2007 the main impetus for making my work was a dual interest in the aesthetics of the ordinary and in abstraction. The work also reflected my interest in the crossover between abstraction and art of a more figurative nature. There was also (and still is) an interest in the crossover between painting and sculpture. My paintings and sculptural assemblages are responses to aspects of the urban environment, and are influenced by a series of perceived opposites: abstraction and representation, the surface and what lies beneath it, presence and absence, the actual and the implied.The works have a meditative quality which is enhanced by the blurring of the boundaries between painting and sculpture.During 2008 I became more interested in experimenting with using figurative elements in my work, in particular the use of generic portraits as a subject and/or starting point. Notions of the Self and the Psyche as subject-matter have become more appealing to me. More examples of my work can be seen on my web site at www.visualartist.info/robertandrews