art gallery cape town

A Robin is a small Old World songbird, typically having a red breast but at the Southern tip of Africa, an orange flame. There is a popular saying: "When robins appear, loved ones are near." In European folklore Robins symbolise the continuity of the departed and renewal after loss. The Robin is the first to return in the Spring signaling rebirth, new beginnings and an infusion of positivity.

Such is the parallel with the artists experiencing a transformative time under the watchful presence of a Robin (with a Y), whose namesake also invokes the legend of Robin Hood and whose surname, when divided, envisions a starry, starry night - a lit sky. Thus the avatar that is Robin Lit Sky is either migrating South with the songbirds under a starry sky or sojourning with a band of Merry Men to redistribute the dragon hoards that sit in useless piles of gold, to the artists in her enclave. 

Many people fondly call Robyn Ruby, alluding to her previous incarnation as the owner and designer of an alluring lingerie and jewellery label with iconic styles, designed and produced in Cape Town, South Africa according to ethical fashion principles and a social upliftment ethos. RUBY the brand, emerged out of her MA Thesis (Univeristy of Cape Town) on the use of traditional beadwork as a model for job creation. An avid participant at SA Fashion Week and fellow founder of the Cape Town Fashion Council, Ruby's wares were synonomous with lush quality and a unique design aesthetic that blended traditional crafts with contemporary trends, holding both local and international fashion lovers intrigued for nearly 2 decades. 

Ruby, the fashion persona pivoted after the Covid pandemic, migrating to the art world. 

From 2021 - 2024 she merged with a business partner to create an experimental, nomadic art gallery that traded across 5 unique sites from Cape Town's Bree street to the winelands before flying solo in this, the Summer of 2025, to establish her own.

Blankfield is her new addition, in honour of her maternal grandfather who gifted vision and sight to others via an optics business, meticulous in it's production of lenses and known for it's manufacture of exceptional South African eyewear. 

With this reverance in mind - for the song of the Robin heralding renewal and rebirth, for the ancestors that have long since departed, for the lenses of perception and their gifts of insight, vision, clarity and beauty, the significance of Ruby Blankfield became so.