Lee Robinsong

Lee Robinsong was born in Germany in 1955. Raised in a British diplomatic family, he lived in Chile, Switzerland, Algeria, Ethiopia and England, before settling in Canada in 1973.

Lee was a student of the late Sir Kyffin Williams RA, the Welsh landscape painter, and Anthony Green RA, the renowned contemporary British painter, at Highgate School, London. After completing further studies in fine arts and graphic design in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he became the art director for the Greenpeace Chronicles, Canada’s first environmental publication.

In 1980, Lee moved to British Columbia’s Cortes Island, where he co-founded the Hollyhock Retreat Centre and began to paint full time. Here he refined his signature “Circulist” style. Influenced by the Cubist perspectives of Picasso and Braque, and the Cree teachings of the Medicine Wheel, Circulism ties together the belief that you can view an object from every direction simultaneously and that everyone views the same object differently. Lee’s Circulist paintings offer the viewer a subjective, holistic view of the natural world.

Over a thirty five-year period, Lee has created 37 Circulist pieces portraying the beauty and power of landscapes in British Columbia’s Desolation Sound, in Glastonbury and Avebury, England, and in Algiers, Algeria. Many of these circles were painted in Hollyhock’s Raven building, which was once his studio. Lee’s works are now included in collections across Canada, the US and Europe.

Lee Robinsong lives in Ottawa, ON, with his wife Patty Loveridge. He has two daughters, Erin and Kaeli Robinsong.