Robert Nava was born in 1985 in East Chicago, IN. He received his BA in Fine Art from Indiana University Northwest in 2008, and his MFA in Painting from Yale University School of Art in 2011.

Known for his vibrant and mischievous approach to figuration, Nava’s paintings pulsate with electric colors. Deceptively spontaneous, these images featuring heroes in battle, beasts breathing fire, and airplanes in flight. Each work is developed in a rigorous process of sketching, and then carefully and painstakingly transferred to canvas through a variety of layering techniques intentionally designed to appear spontaneous and improvised.

Nava’s ‘carefully done wrong’ works, executed in acrylic, grease pencil, and spray paint, are celebrations of color, line, and pop medieval references; they are likewise meticulous exercises in balance and opposition. Within the boundaries of a single painting or between multiple works spread across his studio floor, forces of rivalry and conflict erupt and dissolve not only among the depicted figures, but the modes of depiction themselves.

Nava’s distinctive visual language is highly personal. It is culled from a myriad of sources that range from ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Mayan art, and prehistoric cave paintings, to popular culture, gaming, and fantasy genre movies.

Untitled (Traitor Joe Study), 2017 depicts an airplane in flight, a recurring motif in Nava’s work. Flight in art can be traced back to the Italian futurists such as Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni, who emphasized technology, speed and violence in their work by depicting airplanes, cars, and the industrial city. They also rejected art criticism and openly rebelled against harmony and preconceived notions of ‘good taste.’ Nava, a bold and proud practitioner of his own unique painting style, taps into this vernacular by presenting his own perspective on this historic narrative. The present work is a smaller example of a larger canvas belonging to the collection of the descendants of the painter Cy Twombly, drawing a fascinating parallel between the two artists, both of whom adopted a very thoughtful style of mark making that appears improvised at first glance.

Solo exhibitions of Nava’s work have been presented at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels, Belgium; Pace Gallery, Palm Beach, FL; and V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark. Nava’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Carl Kostyal, Malmö, Sweden; and Safe Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, among others. Nava’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago and the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami.

Nava lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.