A Real Girl, 2026. Painting of a mask of a woman’s made-up face with cut-out eye and mouth holes, worn over long blonde hair.

A Real Girl, 2026 · Oil on canvas, 50 × 41 cm

John Robinson (b. 1981) is a British painter living and working in Worcester, UK. His paintings begin in performance, inhabiting the vernacular imagery through which belief takes material form. Rebuilt in oil as oblique self-portraits, they use disguise to bring queer longing into contact with the search for the divine.

SELECTED RECENT WORKS

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lo corpo dentro al quale io facea ombra. Painting of a figure in a striped track jacket wearing a tiered cardboard mask of Dante’s universe.

lo corpo dentro al quale io facea ombra (Thou Shalt Cover Thy Face), 2026
Oil on canvas, 100 × 90 cm

 A Longing for the Longing. Painting of a head entirely covered in muted lilac, cream and yellow flowers above a dark track jacket.

A Longing for the Longing (Thou Shalt Cover Thy Face), 2026
Oil on canvas, 150 × 120 cm

 Into the Trees. Painting of a seated figure in a green gown with a small mirrored mask, beside a keyboard against a dark trellis.

Into the Trees (Thou Shalt Cover Thy Face), 2025
Oil on canvas, 150 × 120 cm

PERFORMANCE

All performances
Heaven: masked participants surround John Robinson, coated in sauces and flour, in an inflatable pool at DeNode Foundation, Ghent.

THREE-PART PERFORMANCE CYCLE

Hell / Purgatory / Heaven, 2026

The trilogy ascended the DeNode Foundation’s three floors from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven, turning the building into a vertical model of Dante’s afterlife. The performance grew from Robinson’s attempt to imagine the dead trying to reach the living.

View the cycle

UPCOMING

  • Solo presentation with A Modest Show, British Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London — 24 – 27 September 2026

CURRENT

  • Longlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2026, Contemporary British Painting, UK

Recent exhibitions: People Ruin Paintings, DeNode Foundation, Ghent, 2026 →

Complete archive of works 2016 – 2026, by year →