Robert Lemming

Born in 1982, Robert Lemming is a Tulsa native who moved to Northwest Arkansas as a teenager. He studied painting and printmaking at Henderson State University and finished his BA degree with a sculpture emphasis at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville in 2011. His work has been featured in several solo and group shows in venues such as the Historic Arkansas Museum, 21c Museum Hotel, sUgAr Gallery, ASU Beebe and LaLaLand Gallery. He also collaborated with Adam Crosson to create the outdoor sculpture 18 Verticals, 70 Horizontals on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville in 2012. Lemming resides in Madison County Arkansas. He teaches high school art and art history at Farmington High School in Farmington, Arkansas. Lemming previously worked as a Preparator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and has acted as an exhibition consultant at various venues throughout the region including the Hillside Auditorium at the University of Arkansas. 

Lemming’s work manipulates form and light to explore the nature of motion through the sculptural object. Fucoid Arrangements are an ongoing series of sculptures that use trace fossils from the Northwest Arkansas region as a primary element. These began in 2011 when Lemming began seriously collecting fucoid-structure trace fossils from undeveloped gullies and bluff shelters in Madison County Arkansas. The fossils contain remnants of the burrows and pathways of ancient arthropods as they searched for food along the prehistoric sea floor. His process retraces these paths by making hot glue casts of fossil molds. The casts are then arranged and assembled to create entirely new entities that further expand the ambiguities of the original fossils. The results are translucent works that appear simultaneously flower-like and animal.

Furthering investigations of Fucoid Arrangements in Burrows, Lemming intuitively digs or carves the backside of acrylic blocks to form negative-relief works that are showcased from the flat, untouched side. His fascination with the ancient moments captured in the fucoid fossils was the impetus for wanting to create new works based on the intuitive movement. Burrows draws upon Lemming’s training in drawing and painting as well as his sculptural abilities. The nature of the acrylic being worked in such a fashion creates forms that feel glacial, biological and alien.