Robbi Firestone

Artist Statement

Robbi Firestone is a contemporary American artist whose practice examines the intersection of beauty, urgency, and ethics. She investigates how we navigate and metabolize fear, find personal meaning, and take responsibility in today's world.
Firestone's art moves between two tracks. One centers on painting, her feeling work. The other is conceptual, the thinking, or action work, hopefully promoting activism.
The paintings are rooted in abstracted land and sky, not as depictions of place, but as a feeling, expressed with longing and reverence. With these, she hopes to inspire slow seeing. Firestone's paintings use beauty to find refuge and self love.
The conceptual pieces are constructed with unconventional materials including Cheetos, pearls, medical supplies, embroidery, among others. She is currently creating a project titled Existential Snacks where bright, seductive, recognizable snack foods act as a Trojan horse, intellectually challenging viewers with harmless, familiar items while confronting the viewer with unease.
Influenced by feminist art history, environmental ethics and existential philosophy, Firestone is committed to creating surprising, intellectual and compelling work which demands rigorous attention and examines collective fears.
How do we remain awake without becoming paralyzed? How may art might function as commentary, witness, provocation, and even prayer?
Firestone lives and works between New York City and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Studio visits welcome.