Finn Robinson (b.2000, Inverness, Scotland) graduated in 2022 from Glasgow School of Art with a First Class Honours degree in Painting and Printmaking and was awarded the SaltSpace Graduate Residency Award.
Since graduating, Finn has exhibited across the UK, including with BWG Gallery, London, a solo show with SaltSpace, Glasgow, and at the SSA 130th Annual Exhibition in Edinburgh. In 2023, he was shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries.
I create figurative paintings and drawings depicting a world of semi-autobiographical narratives and half-truths. I explore self-hood, queerness, social media, and authenticity, but I am also concerned with ideas of home, detachment, power dynamics, and symbolism. I borrow, collect, and research reference material, producing dense sketchbooks, written journals, and photographic material to later work from (and with). Weaving disparate inky thoughts into depictions of tangled narratives, I explore conceptual understandings of self/other to decipher memories, tell stories, and reveal fantasies.
The work I have been making since graduating investigates personal interpretations of desire informed by, and referencing, art history, social media, and advertising campaigns. Desire for me is many things - a longing for home, a lust for a stranger’s embrace, a wish for success - and I hope exploring it in my work allows me to illustrate some of the ‘what if’ questions which keep me up at night.
