Robyn O'Neil (born 1977) is an American artist known for her large-scale graphite on paper drawings. She is also the host of the podcast "ME READING STUFF".

Early life and education

Robyn O'Neil was born in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

in 1977. She lives and works in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. She received a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

from

Texas A&M University-Commerce Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

, continuing with studies at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, and Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School, Los Angeles.

Professional career and work

O’Neil is known for her detailed narrative drawings that often contain art historical references and center on a theme of existential bleakness and absurdity. Traditionally, her monochromatic drawings have depicted "apocalyptic" scenes in which small human figures engage in acts of violence and trauma. Art critic Christopher French has noted of the artist's practice, "Inventing realities rather than describing aspects of nature, O'Neil's dreamlike vistas offer a potent combination of incorporated graphite collage elements so as to inject foreground detail into ambiguous and otherwise largely unmarked middle distances." Despite the dark nature of her work, positive signs for the future of life and humanity abound. Susan Harris wrote for ''Art in America'' that the " ft, velvety passages of shading; painstaking and lovingly articulated rhythms of line; and the implication of the artist's own hand and arm in gestures both small and grand are palpable evocations of the will to make something out of nothing..." O'Neil has held solo museum exhibitions at the

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is a multimedia contemporary art gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. SECCA has no permanent collection but offers exhibitions of works by artists with regional, national, and international ...

, Winston-Salem; the

Des Moines Art Center The Des Moines Art Center is an art museum with an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture, modern art and mixed media. It was established in 1948 in Des Moines, Iowa. History The Art Center traces its roots to 1916, when the Des Moines As ...

; the

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

; and the

Contemporary Arts Museum Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

, Houston, which traveled to the

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art ("The Johnson Museum") is an art museum located on the northwest corner of the Arts Quad on the main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its collection includes two windows from Frank Lloyd W ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, the

Frye Art Museum The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary ex ...

, Seattle. She has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as the

Toledo Museum of Art The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...

; the

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

; the

John Michael Kohler Arts Center The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is an independent, not-for-profit contemporary art museum and performing arts complex located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, United States.Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary ...

;

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first ...

; The Kemper Museum, Kansas City; and, the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

. Drawings by O'Neil were included in the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

’s 2004

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

. Her work is included in the public collections of the

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

, Houston;

;

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent coll ...

;

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryl ...

;

Sheldon Museum of Art The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art. History Sheldon Art Association In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...

, Omaha;

; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita; and, the

Art Gallery of Western Australia The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is a public art gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia and is supported and managed by the ...

, Perth. In 2010, O'Neil received a FRAMEWORKS Grant from the

Irish Film Board Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland, formerly known as Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board, is the Republic of Ireland's state development agency for the Irish film, television and animation industry. It provides funds for the developm ...

for a film written and directed by her titled “WE, THE MASSES,” which was conceived at Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School. O'Neil is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Grant, an

Artadia Artadia is an American arts non-profit organization founded in 1999. They are headquartered in New York City, and support visual artists with unrestricted, merit-based financial awards as well as other opportunities. History Artadia was founded i ...

grant, and the Huntington Prize. She was featured alongside author

John Green John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTube Content creation, content creator, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including ''The Fault in Our Stars'' ( ...

on PBS Digital Studios' ''

The Art Assignment ''The Art Assignment'' is a PBS Digital Studios webseries focused on contemporary art that debuted in February 2014.Lindquist, David. (24 September 2013)Sarah Green exiting IMA to develop PBS series ''The Indianapolis Star'' ''The Art Assignment' ...

'' in 2014. A recent monograph of her work, ''Robyn O’Neil: 20 Years of Drawings,'' was published by Archon Projects in 2017. In 2016, O'Neil directed a community collaborative drawing project with Harvester Arts in Wichita, KS. The project, The Great Kansas Sea, was inspired by the Permian Sea that covered Kansas 250 million years ago. The massive seascape was created by 700 drawings submitted by 500 participants.

References

External links

www.robynoneil.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneil, Robyn 1977 births Alumni of King's College London Living people Artists from Nebraska Texas A&M University–Commerce alumni University of Illinois Chicago alumni 21st-century American artists 21st-century American women artists

Early life and education

Professional career and work

References

Further reading

External links