In many ways, Jeff Robb’s work can be seen as a 3D response to the history of the photographic nude. American photographers Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz sought formal perfection in the nude, European-based photographers Bill Brandt and Man Ray sought innovative abstract designs. Robb’s work borrows from both traditions - but it is uniquely his own.

Perhaps the most salient aspect of Robb’s nudes is their sensuousness – the lighting both nuanced and beautiful. In velvety darkness, his nudes emerge like marble sculpture – supple, sentient flesh given the implacable hardness of stone. Skin tones have few deep shadows or harsh highlights – so our eye is encouraged to move slowly across soft transitions of tone.

And this movement is aided by fluid, yet contained, compositions: a hand holds a foot leading the eye from arm to leg; the curve of a back echoes the curve of a breast. Our eye is encouraged onward, yet it always has a place to rest. And of course, as these are holograms, the body also moves. It does so like our eye - slowly, so the three-dimensional form of each model reveals itself gradually, sensuously.

Robb’s series can broadly be divided into two: the full-length figures and those which are cropped. The cropped figures encourage metaphorical interpretation. You begin to see natural and organic forms – seashells and sea-smoothed stones; the curve of a pepper or a pear or a peach. Whilst in the full-length figures, the body is simplified into pattern: arms form a cross before the body; a breast is framed by torso, arm and leg. Here is both the aesthetic beauty of a Weston or a Stieglitz and the exquisite abstract design of a Man Ray or a Brandt.

The full-length figures perhaps do not have such poetic resonances. They seem to remain defiantly human. Certainly, at first, you notice the particularities of the human body rather than metaphor – the taut skin over bone juxtaposed against folds of flesh; the smoothness of skin against the texture of hair; a hard, tense, weight-bearing limb against one that bends, leaf-like, towards the ground;

If there is metaphorical element in the full-length figures, maybe it is because they represent psychological states of mind. The figures in repose appear to float like feathers in black space. The models seem lost in another world, mindful of nothing. Sitting, standing or kneeling, however, the figures seem to be very much in this world – contemplative or concerned. Perhaps we see our moods in these models.

‘Contemplative’ and ‘concerned’ are, in fact, good descriptions of Robb’s images not just his models. Think of the work of many modern ‘masters’ of the nude, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts or Patrick Demarchelier. In their images, there is melodrama: every muscle is fixed and flexed, sexuality is blatantly exalted. Robb’s work is quieter, more demanding, probably more beautiful – it shows he is an heir to older, greater masters of the nude.

Matthew Rake BA, MA has written extensively about the visual arts.
His work includes: Writer – ‘Art, The Definitive Visual Guide’, Dorling Kindersley Editor – ‘The Art Course’, De Agostini