Larah Nott

I met Robert when I was studying at Australian National University under Johannes Kuhnen.
Rob was a guest teacher for part of the year and he was certainly an exciting and
effervescent leader. Rob taught from the heart, if you could see it in your head, you could
build it. I was able to really connect with him as I have always struggled to get my ideas out
of my head and on to the page.
Drawing has never been a strong suit and I tend to explore with models and making. I could
not get past the ‘if I cannot make it, how would I make it’ and this was a blocker. The
conceptual thoughts were hard to put down and often hard to get across. Using CAD gave
me a way to move my thoughts into a drawing, and in turn move around it in a 3D space. This made it
much easier and quicker to communicate ideas, faster and more efficient to make changes
and explore themes. He challenged me to push everything further, he always said ‘why
not, your time at university and in any type of training environment is the time you will be lucky to
have out in the real world. This is the time to push and fail or push and succeed. Either way
you will learn to take risks and that some of them may even pay off.‘ I found myself less
focused on the how and more focused on the what more can I do. Rob was such a generous
person, he gave a lot to many and enabled many to succeed. These works are about place
and time. The marine world was something Rob was very fond of and found time in, whether
at the coast in the water or at home with the vast aquarium. Time is fast, life is fast and
watching the creatures of the sea in their environment is a different pace. There is a leisurely
light, colours and movement that is unable to be replicated anyplace else. The dampened
sound, the softness of the water or harshness of its cold sting. A true escape where there is
total envelopment of the mind and body, while another type of existence plays out below.