Rena Bransten Gallery is pleased to present our third solo exhibition with Oakland based artist Robert Minervini. Presented in conjunction with the unveiling of his large mosaic mural at SFO, organized by the San Francisco Arts Commission, this exhibition continues Minervini’s exploration of human intervention in the natural world.
In these works, screen printed California cityscapes and landscapes are backdrops to arrangements of stenciled classical Roman sculptures, cacti and succulents, Etruscan urns, and Egyptian figurines, all placed on shelves inside tiled vitrines. It is a proposition that both honors and disrupts traditions of still-life and landscape painting: are these objects relics of the past, objects of the present, or possibilities of the future? Are the vitrines transparent, or tiled with photo decals? A sense of dislocation and disorientation begins to seep in as forms and landscapes are repeated throughout the work, often silhouetted to further disassociate from their real-world counterparts. These objects are disconnected from any cultural significance, reminiscent of a Cabinet of curiosity, and Minervini’s natural spaces are only facsimiles of nature. This constructed world is as familiar as it is foreign.
Robert Minervini works in painting, drawing, printmaking, murals, and site-specific public art. His work examines spatial environments and notions of utopia in large-scale cityscapes, landscapes, and floral still-life arrangements, all of which address the ecological impact of humanity. Minervini’s works are in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA and the San Jose Museum of Art, CA, as well as numerous corporate collections, including Facebook, and public collections, including the San Francisco Arts Commission, CA and San Francisco General Hospital, CA.
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