Finn Robinson (b. 2000, Inverness) makes figurative paintings which queer images from art history through personal experience, desire, and memory. He approaches these images as active participants capable of acting on him, allowing them to project onto his self as much as he is projecting onto theirs. This exchange produces new narratives that sit on the fringes of his reality, existing between truths as unstable, shifting selves.
Working within canonical legacies, he treats influence as both productive and risky, entangled with questions of consent, influence, and power. He does not seek to resolve these tensions, but to remain within them, allowing the work to operate through layering, repetition, and disruption. Drawing on narrative, portraiture, and religious painting alongside contemporary imagery, Robinson repaints rather than reproduces, allowing colour, gesture and atmosphere to transform their original meanings.
Figures are re-formed through this process, occupying spaces that are neither fully historical nor fully contemporary, where identities and desires circulate across time. His paintings become sites where these encounters accumulate, resembling stage sets where images are reworked and held in tension.
Throughout recent work, colour has emerged as a transformative agent, disrupting historical certainty and moving between innocence, eroticism, vulnerability and artifice. Robinson's work does not aim for clarity or resolution but for sustained engagement with the unstable relationship among self, image, and influence.
Finn graduated from The Glasgow School of Art in 2026 with an MFA Distinction, following a BA in Painting and Printmaking in 2022, where he achieved First-Class Honours.
His work has been recognised nationally through the RSA New Contemporaries 2024, the Cass Art Prize 2025, and the Scottish Society of Artists’ 2026 Past President Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the ACS Studio Prize 2026, Saatchi Art Rising Stars 2026, and Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2023.
His work has been recognised nationally through the RSA New Contemporaries 2024, the Cass Art Prize 2025, and the Scottish Society of Artists’ 2026 Past President Prize. He has also been shortlisted for the ACS Studio Prize 2026, Saatchi Art Rising Stars 2026, and Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2023.
Most recently, Finn held a solo exhibition with artist-run space Horsepower in Glasgow, which received national press attention.