A mauve monochromatic painting by Robin Megannity of a woman biting into an ice cube

Robin Megannity imbues his images with the retro appearance of traditional oil paintings. Unusually for a contemporary artist, he makes use of oil paint's illusionistic potential, building up fictional scenarios in fine layers to suggest real-life scenes. He employs a changing cast of actors to pose with apparently meaningful gestures amid an assortment of symbolic props. Muted colours create claustrophobic shadows, and cryptic titles add to an atmosphere of narrative suspense. Megannity’s works operate as glimpses of storylines, petrified into enigmatic yet intriguing mysteries.

In PICA, Megannity’s subject is rendered in the act of eating an ice cube. His model is his partner, who lives with PICA, an eating disorder that involves eating items not typically considered food and with no nutritional value; for her, eating ice is a means of displacement. The work’s close cropping and sensitive, naturalistic style shed real light on a little-known disorder, yet equally, the composition and the purple, monochromatic palette maintain a surrealism, and a sense of the inexplicable, characteristic of Megannity’s work and the subjects it describes.

A white walled gallery with three artworks hung on the walls and two slim windows 

Exhibition Feature Image

A white walled gallery with two artworks hung on the walls one with a face with light glittering off it and a paintin gby rachel lancaster of two hands holding a crumpled piece of paper

Installation view

A painting by Robin Megannity of a woman whispering into a man''s ear

Gentle Again

Robin Megannity's painting 'on oath', 2023 Oil on linen 67 x 51 cm 26 3/8 x 20 1/8 in: a glitched painting of a Dutch still life painting

Installation shots of Robin Megannity's exhibition 'Call of The Void' at Workplace | London

Call of the Void

A portrait of Robin Megannity in his studio by John-Paul Brown

Robin Megannity

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Robin Megannity

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