Robert Minervini’s painting examine the evolving relationship between nature and culture through the representation of invented spatial environments. He uses tropes from art history, science fiction, cinema and everyday life to create a form of disquieting realm. From grandiose landscapes to complex still life, his work addresses humanity’s impact on the landscape and questions our relationship with it. Sunsets and dense, a-natural foliage testify to a hyper-naturalism that reflects the climate crisis.
He creates images by assembling personal photographs and transposing them onto canvas using a variety of techniques : stencils, hand-painting, airbrushing, spray-painting and silkscreening. This intervention complicates what is natural and what is artificial in painting. He is drawn to the artificially flat nature of acrylic paints and their properties, which often contrast with the subjects he depicts. His naturalism is linked to the rich traditions of Western painting, while striving to forge new interpretations of beauty
and the sublime.
