Robert Dukes was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1965. He left school at 16 to attend Grimsby School of Art. Spending his lunch hours in the school's library, the artist developed a life-long interest in Art History. Dukes then studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, his tutors including Euan Uglow, Patrick George and Jeffery Camp. After the Slade, Dukes spent fifteen years working at the National Gallery shop in London. The artist credits being in daily contact with great figurative art as having a profound effect on his artistic direction.

Dukes works in the traditional media of painting and drawing. He mostly paints still-lifes–his preferred medium oil on wood board. He spends each morning drawing for several hours before beginning to paint. 

Dukes’ paintings centre around creating a structural logic that binds an entire composition together. This takes shape as a kind of visual rhyming. Object, shadow, the space between them, every element holds its place within this larger structure. The result is a still-life built not on stillness, but on the dynamic pull between forms.

Dukes lives and works in London.