Robyn O’Neil

Is any art that depicts a vivid sense of doom and gloom immediately relevant in 2017? Yes, if Robyn O’Neil’s current solo exhibition The Good Herd is any indication. Previously, the Los Angeles-based artist’s dark surrealism felt like an anachronism. Her drawings in exhibitions like 2011’s Hell were, at once, a throwback to Odilon Redon’s trippy drawings and Edward Gorey’s Goth wit.  Emily Colucci, “You Want It Darker: Robyn O’Neil’s ‘The Good Herd’ at Susan Inglett Gallery,” Art F City, February 23, 2017

Robyn O’Neil, a Los Angeles–based artist, is known for thoughtful and facile depictions of her dystopian subjects in ambitious drawings that range from intimate to monumental in scale. The Modern’s These final hours embrace at last; this is our ending, this is our past., 2007, relays the artist’s discipline in intimately drawing an expansive image at a scale to match. Having moved through vast series, working solely with graphite and then color mediums and then graphite, still and moving images—the common thread throughout O’Neil’s career is her allegiance to drawing.

For Tuesday Evenings, O’Neil shares her images, thoughts, and processes in drawing as found in the recently published book Robyn O’Neil: 20 Years of Drawings, available in the Modern Shop. A book signing will precede the lecture.

A video recording of this lectures will be available on the Modern's Youtube.