Robert John is
an artist from Tooting, South London of Pakistani descent with a Catholic
Christian upbringing. His work channels the Surrealism art movement to
interpret the world around him and the reality in which it exists. Robert has
worked across many iconic brands through his career as a designer for the BBC.
In late 2012 he started his art practice called What I See When.
The idea for the project was inspired by his late father who lived with
Parkinson's and developed Parkinson's dementia, his father began seeing things
which were not visible to anyone else, he could see these things, smell them,
even touch and feel them. This made Robert think about what our concepts of
reality are and what we choose to actually see. It also reminded him of how as
a child he would create elaborate worlds and places in his imagination, his
practice asks us to go back to that imagination and tell everyone what we see
in the world around us.