Descending from legacies of Queer feminism, land art and performance art, Drench is the latest manifestation of Ro Robertson’s exploration of the ‘terrain of the queer body’. This new semi-abstract sculpture is made from weathered Corten steel with painted elements. Conceptually, it pairs the flux and energetic potential of the tidal zone, with the plurality of the expanded figure, creating a fluid structure that defies the rigidity of its steel host.

The ‘tidal zone’ is an area of the coastline that becomes submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide. For Robertson, this constant cycle of dehydration and rehydration creates a space of transformation and renewal. The semi-abstract figures of Drench create an expanded reading of the body free from binary and rigid understandings.

Drench welds the figure and the landscape into one, informed by a series of automatic drawings made of the changing shoreline. Six steel forms ranging from 'reclining' to 'upright' ascend in height with the rising tide. The steel is raw on the internal sections, and out the outer is painted in blues up to a 'tide line' that spans the whole sculpture. An initial performance for camera work in which the sculpture is drenched with sea water 'activates' the steel, beginning the acceleration of its patina.

Experienced at ground level, Drench challenges hierarchical attitudes towards the sculptural figure as an ideal upheld on a raised plinth. The sculptures are spaced with channels of negative space around an inlet from which to experience the sculpture centrally.