Robin F. Williams

Region: Northeast

My work exists at the intersection of genre painting and portraiture. Most recently, my subjects are fictional women in unexpected or awkward poses. They provide the viewer with a dark but humorous version of their most culturally valuable attributes (sex appeal, youth, style, grace). In doing so, the figures expose the backhanded offer of limited power these traits promise to women.

The surfaces within a given work shift greatly in texture and application, ranging from oil to airbrush to stained raw canvas. Each painting is an assemblage of dueling edges, approaching some form of realism or surrealism. The surface contradictions nod to the content: female bodies in conflict with their unsanctioned desires. By using the language of 1970s print advertisements, I aim to reinterpret this imagery, previously appropriated from art history, for a contemporary take on female sexuality.