Bob resides in West London and has his studio in Kingston Upon Thames. He was born in Leicester but moved to Banstead, Surrey, when he was four. His father was a social worker and his mother worked as a hospital technician operating the cardiograph equipment at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in Sutton. Attending the local school in the 1970’s Aldous did not study Art at school.
“In those days the girls did Cookery, and the boys did Woodwork, boys studied Technical Drawing and the girls Art, unfortunately that is how it was. I did however paint and draw at home- usually drawings of birds or copies of drawings by Rembrandt”
His interest in Technical Drawing led him to be employed as an Architect technician at the Property Services Agency and then to study for a degree in Architecture at South Bank University. It was during these studies that his interest in Art was ignited.
Bob then went on to Ravensbourne College to study Fine Art painting in the early 1980s. Ravensbourne was a college that valued experimentation and had a particular emphasis on encouraging abstract art. His most influential teachers at the time were the Conceptual Landscape Artist Roger Ackling and the Conceptual Landscape Artist and the Performance Artist Gustav Metzger. Metzger was not the traditional teacher; invited by Roger Ackling he just turned up and talked to students. Metzger orchestrated discussions and meetings and invited several students, including Bob Aldous, to participate in Art Actions and performances under the label “Artists Support Peace”. The subject of Peace activism was not unfamiliar to Aldous as his parents were both Quakers.
With this interest in Peace action, Bob initiated an interactive installation called “Silver Petition” in Saint Paul’s Cathedral as a response to the 2005 London bombings. He also did a series of installation works for the underground performance venue called “Shunt:” which was situated under London Bridge Station in 2010.
