Robyn O'Neil

Robyn O'Neil (born 1977) is an American artist known for her large-scale graphite on paper drawings. She was also the host of the podcast "ME READING STUFF". In 2023, she temporarily retired from the art world by posting a Kristy McNichol quote on her Instagram account. She launched a new podcast, called ROBYN'S GATE, in early 2024.

Early life and education Robyn O'Neil was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1977. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Despite the dark nature of her work, positive signs for the future of life and humanity abound. Susan Harris wrote for Art in America that the "oft, velvety passages of shading; painstaking and lovingly articulated rhythms of line; and the implication of the artist's own hand and arm in gestures both small and grand are palpable evocations of the will to make something out of nothing..." Winston-Salem; the Des Moines Art Center; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, which traveled to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, the Frye Art Museum, Seattle. the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; The Kemper Museum, Kansas City; and, the Dallas Museum of Art. O'Neil is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, an Artadia grant, and the Huntington Prize. She was featured alongside author John Green on PBS Digital Studios' The Art Assignment in 2014. A recent monograph of her work, Robyn O’Neil: 20 Years of Drawings, was published by Archon Projects in 2017.

In 2016, O'Neil directed a community collaborative drawing project with Harvester Arts in Wichita, KS. The project, The Great Kansas Sea, was inspired by the Permian Sea that covered Kansas 250 million years ago. The massive seascape was created by 700 drawings submitted by 500 participants.