Adrian Robb
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Apr 26
- 6 min read
Adrian Robb pays attention to the small details that hold his focus. A stack of books, a garden path, a view from the road—these are the images he returns to. He moves between ink, watercolor, and early sketches for book covers, keeping a steady tone throughout. His process follows quiet routines and familiar references, shaped by a connection to reading and daily observation. The paintings carry a calm rhythm and invite slow looking.
Q: Your “Books” series focuses just on the spines. What made you want to paint that part specifically?
A: As well as being an artist, I’ve spent a large proportion of my life working in bookshops. Literature is so important to me, and it inspires my work so much. I see bookshops as being quite like gardens — they’re nourishing places, full of beautiful colors and shapes.
When I decided to start drawing and painting book covers, I found it easier and more interesting to paint the spines. This way makes it quicker to show lots of books, much like the way books are stored on the shelves. It’s ergonomic. Similarly, with paintings of books, it’s a quick and interesting way of showing colors and typography.
The series kind of started as a way of recommending lots of books online, and a way of celebrating the work of book designers. Now people commission me to paint their favorite books, which I love to do. Also, through working in bookshops, I have now started designing book covers for publishers here in Ireland. I recently completed a cover design for a short fiction collection by Mary Morrissy called "Twenty-Twenty Vision" for Lilliput Press, and a non-fiction cover for Merrion Press.
Q: Your landscapes feel less about mapping a place and more about catching a mood. What kind of moment makes you stop and paint?
A: I suppose, because I’ve been making images for a long period of time, I have an intuitive way of seeing something interesting that could make a good image. It might be an interesting shape, or how colors interact, or maybe the landscape is just outrageously beautiful.
It could also be an attempt to translate the landscape — to understand it, then to transmit that somehow in paint. The paint bit is important, as paint is chaotic and unpredictable. It takes ages to get it to do something useful. In a way, it’s an attempt to see if I can do it.
Sometimes it works very easily, like the watercolor I made in Kassiopi, and sometimes I need to make lots of versions, like the acrylic ink paintings of Glyfada. Either way is interesting. Each one conveys a mood or feeling that I hope other people will respond to.
Q: You return to "Jardim Botânico da Madeira" across multiple works. What keeps pulling you back to that garden?
A: Well, this was a special trip for me. I’d heard quite a lot about the island of Madeira, and although I was excited for the trip, I wasn’t expecting to be so blown away by the island’s beauty. It’s a very magical place, very colorful, and because I make art, it was very inspiring.
I also love gardens and trees and plants — I like their shapes and colors — so my trip to the Jardim Botânico in Funchal was mind-blowing. I’ve visited many botanic gardens, but the sheer range of plants was overwhelming, and I spent the day feeling so happy. So, the paintings of this garden are a way of remembering that specific day and a kind of communication with that garden.
I feel that interacting with nature is important for humans, especially when life gets tough. The act of looking at plants and the activity of gardening is good for people.
I’m not entirely sure why, but I feel like something gets resolved when we interact with something that is consistently evolving. I always think of Derek Jarman’s garden, which he made when he was diagnosed and dying from AIDS.
His garden is, for me, like the garden in Funchal — an attempt to create a small paradise, a kind of condensed version of the beauty in nature.
Q: You designed the cover for your short story collection. What’s it like blending your writing and painting so directly?
A: Well, this is such an interesting question! I believe that writing, gardening, cooking, designing, and making art are such an important part of life.
I know some people kind of see them as leisure activities, but personally I see them as essential work. All these activities that I spend a lot of my time doing involve sharing with people what is great about life.
It’s a very simple but important type of communication.
Designing the cover for my short story collection — before I even write the stories — is my way of bringing into existence something that, in some ways, I’m nervous about. I’m attempting to see if I can make a book or not, and by designing it first, I feel like it might be possible.
Of course, the stories could be bad, but by making the cover, I feel like the thing might happen — like I am willing this thing into existence somehow by using design as the initial impulse.
I read a great short story recently by the writer Shane Tivernan, which is about a woman who painted the moves of a chess game between Garry Kasparov and the IBM computer Deep Blue.
It’s such an interesting concept — to make paintings of a chess game between a grandmaster and a computer.
In a way, I want to find a creative way into writing, so I have to kind of invent a way for myself. By designing the cover before the words, I’m kind of trying to convince myself that I can do it.
Q: You often paint places you've visited or lived in. How does memory play into how they show up on the page?
A: I do a fair bit of travelling; I’ve also lived and worked in quite a few places: London, Dublin, Lille, Cambridge, and Harrogate. I was born in the North of Ireland. So, I’ve led quite a nomadic life, I guess. My urge to travel is born of this type of movement. Moving often involves "leaving," which can be quite melancholic in a way.
The landscapes are a deep way of staying. I mean, I could just take a great photograph — and I do this. But when I sit down to make a landscape, it’s a deeper attempt to catch a mood, to remember, to stay. When I make the landscapes, it’s a long-term process, a little bit like therapy.
I recently visited Corfu, and I travelled all over the island (which is beautiful!) on a little scooter. Every part of the island is quite different. So, when I was on the west coast in Glyfada, I became quite obsessed with how the buildings on the beach interacted with the beach and the sea.
As I moved around the island, I came to a place called Kassiopi; the place I stayed in had beautiful framed shutters, which had such an interesting view over the little town. So, I made the watercolor to capture this experience.
It’s the same as the hillside view of those buildings in Funchal. My impulse was: God, that looks important and interesting and could make a great painting! It’s also about showing other people this.
Q: You work across a lot of mediums — painting, illustration, writing. Do you ever feel like one speaks louder than the rest?
A: Such a great question! I feel like the work I do as an illustrator and book cover designer is much more collaborative and involves lots of people having input into the final product. It’s much more about making compromises in the hope that you make a good final image. Especially with the cover design, there are so many factors that come into play. There is the designer’s input, the publishing manager, and of course the author. It’s really very interesting, because as a designer, you might have a desire to have a cover a certain way, but often the publisher can be totally right!
With painting, it’s much more open, but often that too can be problematic, because you’re just dealing with different aspects of yourself, and different materials and shapes interacting. It’s much more meditative, but it’s still quite hard work. Making paintings is a long process, with so many dead ends. But when you get it right, it’s very satisfying.
With writing, this is at an early stage, so I have no idea! I mean, I do write a biannual blog about book design for Dubray Books here in Dublin, so I know how to research and present ideas. But I feel creative writing could be a lot more like painting, if that makes sense — especially in the early stages. I feel like writing and then publishing a text is much more collaborative, as the text is edited and honed.
