About the Artist

Robin Venter was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and currently works and resides in Laguna Beach, California. Robin attended the Maryland Institute College of Art from 2017-2018 before transferring to the Laguna College of Art and Design, where they earned their BFA in Drawing and Painting in May of 2022. Robin is a queer, representational figurative artist aiming to make visible the lives and bodies of other individuals within the LGBT community. Using academic training and influences from art history, the artist blends together current societal issues surrounding queerness and the representational figurative tradition.

Artist Statement

Venter seeks to explore what defines a “queer aesthetic” and how those definitions are formed through a collective consciousness. With being a part of a community that falls outside of the norm of society, there are overlapping experiences shared between individuals that slowly crystalize into its own sort of canon. If the world is structured around the confines of heteronormativity, what does it look like, and what does it imply, when those norms are broken. Eventually do these norms start to be deviated from intentionally in a way that establishes an aesthetic framework? There’s a philosophy of queer phenomenology that brings up the idea that those who fall outside of the gender and sexual norm view the world on a sort of “slant”. Addressing how that slanted perspective impacts one’s relationship between themself and the world is explored through painting individuals in clothing, props, and environments that create a sense of comfort and euphoria. There is a highly curated way in which individuals present themselves in order to find comfortable in their bodies, both informed by and despite how a heteronormative society views and categorizes them. Every individual curates their own presentation differently, but there exists common threads, especially when they exist to signal to others within the same community. When one lives outside of the rules of gender expectations and presentation, that freedom looks strange to those who still adhere.

Queer lives have always existed, but there hasn’t always been in place this language catered to identity that we are able to access today. Even though it would be anachronistic to assign historical figures (both real and fictional) with the labels of today’s society, the shared experiences that bridges centuries still holds significance. Those predecessors become pillars to the individuals who see themselves within those histories. Examples of past queer lives and experiences are brought into Venter’s work through nods to art history and mythologies, connecting the past and present to affirm that there have always been examples of those who defy the societal structures of gender and sexuality, and that they are looked up to with admiration today.

Through the combination of depicting living and thriving individuals today, and extracting inspiration from the institutional authority of art history, the artist hopes to re-establish the presence of queer lives and stories within the canon of western representational figurative art, a tradition that has previously worked to suppress visual language that promoted anything besides the straight and narrow expectations of society. Venter hopes to provide a feeling of being seen and understood to those who share the experiences of those depicted in their paintings, creating a sense of community through a visual language apparent to all, but only truly understood by those who see on the same slanted plane.