"Michael Robinson continues to make work like no one else. His deft combinations of pop and cultural artifacts are just so intuitively right and never devolve into simple post-modernist pastiche or cultural commentary. They move beyond that to become something deeper, more mysterious, and less fathomable. The word that keeps coming to mind is uncanny: his work feels haunted by a time out of time. His newest video, If There Be Thorns, is his most narratively-bent work yet. He fashions an elusive tale of siblings – with hints of social withdrawal, incest and tragedy – through fragments from horror author V.C. Andrews, William S. Burroughs, Stevie Nicks and others. There is an uneasy quality to Robinson’s work, a vaguely troubling glimpse beneath the surface of things into a dark place he never lets one actually see. Strangely, there is also a simultaneous feeling of euphoria in his work – suggestions of redemption or grace or peace. There is no dark without light, after all." - Patrick Friel, Senses of Cinema
