As a professor of art at Miami University, Robert Robbins’ typical landscape involves students and studios. But in his latest exhibition of his own art, Robbins likes to explore a different kind of landscape.

His feature, joined by Cincinnati artist Frank Hermann, can be found in the Indian Hill Gallery’s Autumn Annual invitational exhibition. It opened September 8 and closes October 28.

Casey Dressel, who received her MFA in Studio Art from Miami University in 2018, curated the exhibition for the gallery after seeing his work in a solo exhibition at the Oxford Community Arts Center last fall.

Ruth Meyer, the Ohio-renowned former director of the Taft Art Museum, wrote in the foreword for the exhibition catalog about the paintings: “The ecological sentiments that underlie the artist’s drawings and paintings are immediately visible. Of his art, Robert Robbins says, ‘I portray the enormous multifarious complexity of the small and easily overlooked patches of nature that are all around us. I paint the places that might easily be passed over, but when given your attention, allow you to reel in their variety and complexity. They are small spaces portrayed on a large scale. They engulf the viewer, and the viewer must push their way through to the ground before them, and then to the horizon.’”

Robbins loves teaching at Miami because he benefits from his students.

“The students in the Department of Art at Miami create a very highly energized art community,” Robbins said. “Certainly, my personal work has absorbed a great deal of what is the diverse thought climate of the university, and I think my work is much better for it.”

He thanks his colleagues in the Department of Art for helping him remember on a daily basis why he does art.

“Miami University is an incredibly wonderful place for anyone in the creative arts,” Robbins said. “I genuinely appreciate each and every person in this gem of a department.”

View the entire catalog for the exhibition, including visiting details, here. See more on his website.