The poet and visual artist Robert Montgomery is one of the leading figures of conceptual art internationally. In the artworks of the Scottish artist, the tradition of contemporary text-art is evident, which the artist renews through poetry and a strong interventionist strategy within the public space. Artist’s textual compositions are formulated and operated through a variety of mediums and constructive methods: works made of billboard panels, from light, glass, fire poems and watercolors, all together compose a deeply thoughtful world, a poetic voice which in its clear tone is converted to a collective unconscious speech. Montgomery’s public poetic sculptures develop, with tenderness, a collective viewing experience that conceptually transforms the contemporary urban landscape. The almost transparent poetic discourse and the melancholic method of détournement (re-routing) in his action field – as an after-effect of the neo-situationist tradition – wakens the viewer's consciousness by making him feel the relationship with himself, space, time, loss and the natural environment.
Montgomery's first sculpture in Perama, THE BEGINNING OF HOPE, placed in the public space since the first months of 2020, condenses the optimistic message of creation, the primary force for any kind of change and liberation. In the even more recent work WHEN WE ARE GONE THE TREES WILL RIOT, the artist translates into a language of nature the fragility and ephemeral condition of humanity and life itself, due to the climate crisis. In parallel he suggests that only through unity and effective action against the destruction of the environment, humanity can create a sustainable and hopeful future.