Robin was born in the Mojave Desert region east of Los Angeles. She began drawing and painting as a small child but went on to earn her bachelor's degree in English (1993), concentrating in creative writing. In 1995 she was awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship and began doctoral studies in cognitive anthropology at the University of California. Upon receiving her master's degree (1998) she fled the halls of academia in search of a more creative life path.
On her own, Robin began studying Adobe Photoshop and Lightwave 3D. She took a job at Foundation Imaging (now defunct) as a motion capture performer on SciFi Channel's CGI animated television series Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. After a few months, she was offered a position as a 3D modeler and texture painter. After working in 3D animation for a couple of years, she transitioned into the field of print design. Today she works primarily as a high-end Photoshop retoucher (www.goldenones.com).
Since leaving academia, Robin has also been developing her artistic vision through painting and writing. Her imagination leaps to science, futurism, symbolic cognitive processing, and the stark morality of fairy tales: The alien, the organic, the byzantine, the dark and bright.
Visually Robin's primary subject is women and girls. Alternately murderous and utterly vulnerable, Robin's girls represent a struggle between the naive yearning for human connection and the violent instinct toward self-preservation under the male gaze. Colorful ornamentation, irrational symbols and whimsical fashion statements suggest one pathway: emotional self-sufficiency through radical creativity. That is, when personal openness appears problematic, one can still commune indirectly through the exchange of inspired visions–the most intimate communion being reserved for the inner muse. Also: development of the feminine will through gratuitous willfulness.
In addition to her paintings, Robin is currently working on a science fiction novel, a number of poems and short stories, portrait photography, short illustrated stories for Kino's Systematic Strangulation graphic novel, and too many other things.
Robin has lived in California, Idaho, Belgium, and France. She is based in Los Angeles, but residing for the moment in Nuremberg, Germany.
Check out Robin's professional retouching website: www.goldenones.com
Self-Portrait (2005)