Nadine Robbins

An expression of the contemporary experience, these paintings tell the stories of ordinary people from all walks of life. My way of working is a combination of digital technology, photography, and most importantly, time intensive and complex oil painting techniques grounded in atelier traditions. I begin with photography of my subject, and use the projection of the picture as a basis for the layered painting process on linen, drawing and recomposing the lines, combining turpentine and oil, blocking in the base to achieve value and color. As I go, I add oil to my medium to achieve a wet on wet process, refining with highlights and darkness. This process and construction of a painterly image can take months and as such responds to the historic legacy of portraiture, while expressing a distinctly contemporary experience of the world.

While my process is undeniably ensconced in the ways of academic painting, my subjects are by no means the traditional type; rather I search for people who have a certain emotional clarity. They might meet your glance head on, while still others just have a remarkable beauty that seems somehow unusual. The composition of each portrait is achieved by finding that place between the humorous and poignant,...

BFA Graphic Design, New Paltz, NY
American painter, designer, and photographer Nadine Robbins’ contemporary style is distinguished by a masterly command of academic painting techniques, and an irreverence for rules and gendered ideas of beauty. Today, the artist has earned great admiration for her alluring nudes, portraits, and the lush precision of erotic still lives of oysters.

Robbins grew up in France and the United States. Her interest in the fine arts began in childhood. Under the tutelage of her artist mother Robbins learned of the great masters, and with her father, about the wonders of the natural world on the shores of the American coast. In addition to these early visual experiences, Robbins’ formal experience includes extensive work as a professional photographer, creative director, and designer. As well, the artist also holds her BFA from SUNY, New Paltz, New York.

Robbins is widely recognized in particular for her large scale painting series Eight Portrait Peaces, two of which were selected for exhibition at the prestigious Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London, in 2010 and 2011. In all of Robbin’s figural works, the dialogue between painter and subject allows an evocation of complex emotion and sexuality,...

ELECTED SOLO, GROUP AND UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

2016
Chévere, Sirona Fine Arts, Hallandale Beach, FL
Freak Out!, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL
40 years, 40 artists, The Mark Gruber Gallery, New Paltz, NY
Mod Portrait, Sala Bantierra de Zaragoza, Zaragoza and Museo Meam de Barcelona, Spain

2015
Trio Exhibition, Oil Water Bronze, Sirona Fine Arts, Hallandale Beach, FL
7th Annual NUDES Exhibition, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
Immortality and Vulnerability, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL
The Artists gaze: Seeing women in the 21st Century, Sirona Fine Arts, Hallandale Beach, FL

2014
Art Undressed, International Nude Art Exhibition, Miami, FL
Fixation, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL

2013
In The Flesh 4, Target Gallery, Alexandria, VA
Current Hues of the Hudson, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Bethel, NY

2012
Blue, Saugerties Performing Arts Factory, Saugerties, NY
Disrobed, The Mark Gruber Gallery, New Paltz, NY

2011
In The Flesh 3, Target Gallery, Alexandria, VA
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Show, London, United Kingdom
Solo Exhibition, Eight Portrait Peaces, Brill Gallery, North Adams, MA

2010
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Show, London, United Kingdom