Description
The Original
Pont Neuf by Robin Rivers is an original piece of mixed media photography on wood from the Albertine – Social Landscapes Series. I created this piece using my original photography that has not been digitally altered, archival photography, vellum, acrylic medium and gold.
The framed piece measures 15×17″(W/H). Shipping will be calculated based on location. Please note that colours and contrast vary between different monitors. The colours may not match your monitor’s display exactly. Additionally, copyright of my artwork does not transfer with purchase.
The Inspiration for Pont Neuf by Robin Rivers
Paris, the city of light, romance, wonder. At times, it may seem cliché. But, what of its magic? Its way of drawing one in and reconstructing how we perceive the world? Through the Social Landscapes series, I wanted to explore cultural memory keeping through the lens of romanticism. Each piece transforms single antique postcards from often-anonymous Parisian street photographers into complex narratives that stretch the boundaries of memory and time through the inclusion of archival photography, original photography shot by the artist, and layers of writing, handmade papers, and ephemera. Each piece begins with the romance of the city and expands into the broader social realities of Belle Époque Paris, incorporating archival materials and historical figures to explore how individual longing intersects with the cultural currents of the era.
Pont Neuf looks at how bridges create gateways between old and new worlds. Through the use of antique archival photography, modern original photography, painting and gold leafing, the passage to another world reveals itself.
Sources
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- Paris Musées (CC Zero)
- Artist materials
- Original photography
- Handmade papers, vellum, gold acrylic paint, acrylic matte medium
- Licensed photography
How I source and care for historical materials → Sources
The Artist
Robin Rivers works across photography, collage, and text to recover the lives of women the historical record left out, overlooked, or misremembered—not as reconstruction, but as retrieval.
That work takes shape in the material each inquiry calls for: specific landscapes she photographs again and again, found photographs, writing, and archival fragments. The result sits deliberately between evidence and imagination: precise about sources while making room for intimacy, longing, and the gaps scholarship alone cannot fill.
Robin creates at Studio Albertine in Vancouver, Canada—on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples. This includes the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
