Raising Up

Robert Minervini’s practice encompasses painting, printmaking, mural painting, and site specific public artworks. His work examines an evolving relationship between nature and culture through the depiction of spatial environments. He utilizes tropes from art history, science fiction, film, and references from quotidian life to depict places and spaces both real and imagined. Through grand landscapes and intricate still lives his work addresses the impact of humanity on the landscape. The version of reality he presents, displayed through saccharin sunsets and lush foliage, is a form of hyper naturalism, one that is exaggerated and created through the intervention of the camera and computer. Diving through a dense archive of imagery both found and personal, he typically makes digital sketches for each composition, which are then transferred to the canvas and painted using a multitude of painting techniques. He’s interested in the many ways acrylic paint can be applied to create an image and builds his paintings through a laborious process of layering paint through hand cut stencils, hand painting, airbrushing, spray painting, and silk screen printing. He is drawn to the artificially flat nature of acrylic paints and their properties, which is often in contrast and dialogue with the subjects he approaches. Minervini’s naturalism is one that is tethered to the rich traditions of western painting, while striving to make new interpretations of a contemporary idea about beauty and the sublime.