Robin F. Williams

Born 1984, Columbus, OH. Lives and works in New York City.

 
 

About

Known for their large-scale paintings of stylized, sentient, yet ambiguously generated female figures, Robin F. Williams employs a variety of techniques, including oil, airbrush, poured paint, marbling, and staining of raw canvas to create deeply textured and complexly constructed paintings. Combining a masterful technical understanding with an innate sense of curiosity, Williams fuses practices from social media channels such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube with references to early modernism, pop culture, advertising, and cinema, to challenge the systemic conventions around representations of women. 

Williams received their BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and has presented solo exhibitions at P·P·O·W, New York, NY; Morán Morán, Mexico City, Mexico; Perrotin, Tokyo; Pace Prints, New York, NY; and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA, among others. Robin F. Williams: We’ve Been Expecting You, Williams’s first solo institutional exhibition, was on view at the Columbus Museum of Art, April 5 - August 18, 2024.

Their work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally including Pictures Girls Make: Portraitures, curated by Alison Gingeras, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA; In New York, Thinking of You (Part I), Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY; I’m Not Your Mother, P·P·O·W, New York, NY; Fire Figure Fantasy, ICA Miami, Miami, FL; Present Generations, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Bitter Nest, Galerie Perrotin, Tokyo, Japan; XENIA: Crossroads in Portrait Painting, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY; Nicolas Party: Pastel, Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY; SEED, curated by Yvonne Force, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY; and more.

Their work is currently in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Collection Majudia, Montreal, Canada; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; X Museum, Beijing, China; among others. Robin F. Williams is represented by P·P·O·W.