This ambitious image, with its multiple overlapping figures, tries to express some of Robert’s ideas of social microcosm and the mythology of pop culture. The dance serves as an initiation rite: graduation from high school and testing relationships.

Robert was inspired by an image found in a local high school yearbook. Pop artists were noted for using similar images from ads, newspapers and comics, mimicking the technical elements of mass media. In the case of Robert’s High School Dance, the garish flash from an amateur photo, as well as the absence of colour, signal the viewer that this is a painting of a photo. The flash also makes the figures appear ghost-like as if the dance lingers in our memory long after the event has passed. The theme of the dance  later appears in Robert’s painting, High. The theme of intimate moments played out in public spaces was a key feature of the “Illness and Healing” series.

German Pop artist Gerhardt Richter, famous for his black and white paintings, was a visiting artist at NSCAD and exhibited at the Anna Leonowne Gallery in 1978 during Robert’s first year there. He may have influenced the look of Robert’s image.