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 projects 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 appropriation 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. 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 or constructed compositions in which images are reworked and held in tension. The work does not aim for clarity or resolution, but for a sustained engagement with the unstable relationship between self, image, and influence.
Finn graduated in 2022 from The Glasgow School of Art with a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Art, specialised in Painting and Printmaking. At his degree show, he was selected for the RSA New Contemporaries 2024 and awarded the SaltSpace Graduate Residency Award. Since graduating, Finn has exhibited across the UK and regularly sells his work internationally. In 2023, he was shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries, and in 2024, he returned to The Glasgow School of Art to study for an MFA. Most recently, Finn won the People's Choice Award at the Cass Art Prize 2025.