Robin Friend Studio

11/09/2026

THE AUTOPHAGY OF US

Wild animals are learning to live inside the systems we have built.

The Autophagy of Us explores the uneasy relationship between British wildlife and landscapes reshaped by human industry. Animals appear among cooling towers, radar installations, pylons, shipyards and an Amazon fulfilment centre. These are places marked by extraction, surveillance, commerce and ambition, yet they remain inhabited by other forms of life.

The title comes from autophagy, the process through which a cell breaks down and recycles its own damaged parts in order to survive. The project began after I developed an autoimmune illness during the pandemic, prompting me to think about bodies, ecosystems and societies attempting to protect themselves while simultaneously turning in upon themselves.

For these installations, the photographs are brought into direct contact with carved elm and ebonised oak. The oak is darkened through a chemical reaction between iron and the natural tannins within the timber. The wood is cut, carved and reworked, carrying its own histories of damage, decay and survival and extending the ideas held within the photographs.

On show now with Human Nature at The Soap Factory, Lewes, as part of Artwave, until 20 September.

WORKS SHOWN

Golden Eagle, baryta print, ebonised oak, ebonised walnut beam

Owl, Telecommunications Mast
Pigment print mounted on aluminium with carved elm

Prints from the series are available in three sizes, starting at £500.

Link in bio, or contact [email protected]

10/09/2026

Hay Bales, hanging in the living room of interior designer Beata Heuman Beata Heuman
There are now just two remaining from the edition of seven.

Photographed on a farm in Kent, the image turns something ordinary into something sculptural: pink hay bales stacked into a pyramid, with colour and form doing all the talking.

75 × 60 inches / 190.5 × 152.4 cm
Edition of 7

Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta, printed by me in the studio in Lewes.

Available through my website — link in bio. Please send me a message if you would like any further details.

02/09/2026

01/09/2026

Really excited to be showing new work from The Autophagy of Us as part of Artwave with 204 and Half Collective.

This will be the first opportunity to see the new language I’ve been developing between photography and sculptural work in wood.

5 to 20 September
Venue 125
The Soap Factory
Phoenix Place, North Street, Lewes BN7 2QJ

Let me know if you can make it and I’ll make sure I’m there to take you through the work :)

31/08/2026

Me and the kiddos visiting the shipwreck a few weeks back. They were so excited to go on it in the flesh. I’d been promising them for ages we’d do it!

02/06/2026

I made this photograph in North Wales whilst studying at the RCA.

Around that time I visited dozens of old abandoned mines in this area, drawn to these strange, difficult places where the act of making a photograph felt uncertain and physical.

Photography itself seemed to be shifting quite quickly then, somewhere between analogue and digital, and the process was becoming easier, faster, more accessible.

I remember really enjoying the opposite of that: the challenge of trying to make a picture in almost no light, using light itself as the main material. It felt slow, awkward and unpredictable, which was probably exactly why I liked it.

And now, of course, we have AI, another shift entirely. It makes me think again about what it means to make an image, and where the difficulty, the accident, and the human hand still belong.