“The symbolic codes pervading Michael Robinson’s Universus are intricate, beautiful, profound, and mysterious, drawing us along ancient pathways into novel explorations of the unknown.”
— GRAHAM HANCOCK, Author of Fingerprints of the Gods and Supernatural
“Having Michael’s art in my home is a profound treat; pleasing for our eyes and healing for our hearts!”
— ELENA BROWER, Teacher, Speaker, and author of Art of Attention and Practice You
ABOUT
Michael Robinson is a multidisciplinary artist, creative director, and educator whose work explores symbolic systems, speculative futures, perception, and the visual languages humans create to navigate landscapes, memory, identity, and collective consciousness. Working across painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, installation, and digital media, Robinson’s practice merges abstraction with cartography, glyphs, alphabets, archetypal imagery, and intuitive mark-making inspired by ancient rock art, petroglyphs, and shared symbolic systems that transcend culture and time.
Central to his practice is Universus, an ongoing body of work investigating humanity’s impulse to encode meaning through signs, maps, gestures, and invented languages. Through layered compositions that balance graphic precision with raw gestural movement, Robinson creates immersive visual terrains in which fragmented alphabets, celestial diagrams, ritualistic markings, and speculative symbols drift between abstraction and legibility. Influenced by contemporary abstraction, systems thinking, mythology, typography, fashion, subcultures, ritual, and contemporary dance, and design history, his work approaches image-making as a form of cartography, constructing nonlinear works and environments that examine how humans organize belief, spirituality, identity, cultural memory, and perception itself. His compositions function simultaneously as symbolic maps, coded transmissions, and imagined archaeological fragments, inviting viewers to navigate shifting relationships between past, present, and speculative futures.
Born in New York, Robinson lives and works in New York City. He serves as an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design and School of Visual Arts, where he has been nominated three times for the Excellence in Teaching Award. His collaborators and clients include Alicia Keys, Shen Wei Dance Arts, RZA, and legendary photographers Jim Marshall and Timothy White.
CV: COMING SOON
EXHIBITIONS
SOLO SHOWS
2015
Portals - Casa QuienGallery • November 2015 - February 2016 • Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Altos de Chavón - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Casa Quien Gallery Pop Up Show - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2014
Sage - Boise, Idaho
Synaptic Stimuli - Gallery Feature
2011
Park Avenue Armory, Solo Show and Pop-Up Shop in conjunction with Shen Wei Dance Arts, New York, New York
TWO-PERSON SHOWS
2009
Evolver: 2012 Split Show with Rodrigo at Collective Hardware, New York, New York
Under Minerva Gallery Split Show with Claudia Cannizzaro, Brooklyn, New York
2013
Signs and Symbols, Split show with Eric Madigan, InnerMission, San Francisco, CA
GROUP SHOWS
2024
A Moment in Time • Green-Wood Cemetery x Printique • One of ten contest winners selected for an outdoor photography exhibition.
The School of Visual Arts All-Staff Art Show
2023
A Dream Made Real - Reno International Airport, Reno, Nevada
2021
Regenaissance, Art Basel, Miami, FL
Regenera Rising, Buckminster Fuller Institute • Design Science Studio
Terrene Perceptions NFT Exhibition Design Science Studio + Grey Area
2019 - 2020
Ritualistic Ink - Burners Without Borders - Black Rock City, NV
No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man - Oakland Museum of Contemporary Art - Oakland, CA
No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man - Cincinnati Art Museum - Cincinnati, OH
2018
No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man - Smithsonian American Art Museum - Renwick Gallery - Washington, D.C.
Bushwick Print Lab: The Art of the T-Shirt - Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2017
Skin in the Game - A 360º VR Experience - Royce Hall and The National Young Arts Foundation - Los Angeles, CA, and Treefort Music Festival - Boise, ID - Created for Pharrell Williams, Daniel Arsham, David Campbell, Chris Stampd, and Jonah Bokaer. Co-directed by Ben Piluba.
City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man - Nevada Museum of Art
Ink Rituals - Burners Without Borders - Black Rock City, NV
2016
Skin in the Game - A 360º VR Experience - Brooklyn Academy of Music - Created for Pharrell Williams, Daniel Arsham, David Campbell, Chris Stampd, and Jonah Bokaer. Co-directed by Ben Piluba.
Da Vinci's Dust- Burners Without Borders • Black Rock City, NV
2015
Watusi Regime - Rooftop Edition - Brooklyn, New York
Selection - Casa Quien Jenny Polanco Project - La Romana, Dominican Republic
Burners Without Borders - Black Rock City, NV
2014
Default World Dreaming - Gallery 151, New York City
Sacred Spaces Visionary Art Show - Black Rock City, NV
Burners Without Borders - Black Rock City, NV
2013
Fractal Planet Visionary Art Show - Black Rock City, NV
Color: An Alumni Show - Parsons School of Design, New York
Burners Without Borders - Black Rock City, NV
2012
Sigils and Signs - Group show, The Observatory, Brooklyn, New York
Burners Without Borders - Black Rock City, NV
2011
Page Not Found - Group show of visual art and performance, Brooklyn, New York.
Conscientia Retreat, with Ross Bleckner, Android Jones, and Carey Thompson
2008
The Super Thing: A Show At 3rd Ward with Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Brooklyn, New York
Evolver: Wake Up and Dream Salon, New York, New York
2007
Progressive Arts Network: Series One, Brooklyn, New York
Dance Gang Salon: No. 5 - State of Interdependence, The Pratt Cave, Brooklyn, New York
Parsons School Of Design: Exhibition of Universus, New York, New York
2006
Good News Project Exhibition, Belgrade, Serbia
2005
In situ, Westport Arts Center, Westport, CT
2004
Levi Strauss And Co.: 12 Conditions 501 Jeans Show, New York, New York
2003
Levi Strauss and Co.: 150th Anniversary of the 501 Jean Show, New York, New York
Here Gallery's Videohaus Installation, New York, New York
2002
CBGB's Gallery: Your Soaking In It - Photography Show, New York, New York
1999
Whitney Biennial Performance Series with Soundlab, New York, New York
Here Gallery: Video House Installation, New York, New York
Surface Mag: Space Project, San Francisco, CA
Smithsonian-Computerworld Awards, Washington, D.C
1998
Res Fest, New York, New York
Smithsonian-Computerworld Awards, Washington, D.C
The Retinevitable Festival, New York, New York
AIGA Fresh Dialogue Conference, New York, New York
AWARDS
1998 Levi's I-film Award