PAINTING
memory,
WRITING light.
I’m Vanessa Robison — contemporary artist & memoirist. For 18 years I’ve turned family archives, desert landscapes and quiet domestic moments into large-scale paintings, photographs and essays about becoming.
ROBISON
★ EST. 2008
“I paint what I cannot say out loud.” — now showing in Hudson
About — The woman behind the canvas
Hello, I’m Vanessa. I make art from what we try to forget.
Born in Santa Fe, raised on road trips and darkroom chemicals, I spent my twenties as a documentary photographer, my thirties as a mother of two learning to paint at the kitchen table at 5 a.m., and my forties as a full-time artist with a waiting list and a very messy studio I love fiercely.
- 🎨 Large-scale oil & mixed media — memory palimpsests, 60” to 96”
- 📖 Memoir & lyric essays — published in 14 literary journals
- 🏜️ Two studios: converted barn in Hudson, NY + adobe in Marfa, TX
- 🤍 Mentorship: 300+ women artists guided through “Reclaim” course
Represented in private collections in 11 countries. Former photo editor turned painter. Believer in slow mornings, strong coffee, and second chances.
Selected work 2022 — 2026
Canvases that hold a whole life.
Ochre, bone, rust and blush. I layer acrylic, oil, family photographs, torn letters and desert dust until the surface feels like skin — familiar, scarred, luminous.
Inside the studio
Two barns, one ritual.
Every day starts the same: walk, write three longhand pages, grind pigment, answer one letter from a reader, then paint until light goes. No phone until noon. Music always — Nina, O’Connor, desert wind.
Morning pages & gesso
6:00 — 8:30 • Writing, priming, thinking with hands
Deep paint block
9:00 — 14:00 • Large canvases, no meetings, no photos
Archive hour
16:00 — 17:00 • Scanning family negatives, collecting stories for memoir
Read studio journal
Books & words
She writes like she paints.
“Where Light Remains” — a memoir in 27 paintings & 27 essays
Coming April 2026. A mother, a divorce, a cross-country move, and learning to see again. Each chapter pairs one painting with one true story — funny, gutted, hopeful. Pre-order list now open for signed first editions with a small original sketch.
- 📚 256 pages, 90 color plates, linen hardcover
- ✍️ First book: “Kitchen Table Hours” (2021) — 4th printing
- 🎙️ Book tour: Hudson, Marfa, Santa Fe, Portland, Chicago
“Vanessa writes the way light moves across a wall — slowly, then all at once. I finished her essay and called my mother.”
— Reader, Marfa • Studio letter“Her Hudson show stopped me cold. Monumental, tender, deeply American. A major voice in contemporary memory work.”
— Gallery visitor, 2025“Reclaim changed my practice. I went from hiding sketchbooks to my first solo. Vanessa sees artists into being.”
— Mentee, Reclaim Cohort 9Journey
From darkroom to desert.
2004 — Photo editor & night owl
Shooting weddings by day, developing film by night in a closet darkroom in Austin.
2011 — Kitchen table painter
Two babies, one $39 watercolor set. First 100 bad paintings that taught everything.
2018 — First sell-out show
“Matrilineal” in Santa Fe sells out in 3 hours. Quits day job with shaking hands.
2022 — Marfa adobe studio
Buys crumbling adobe, rebuilds with friends, paints 40-piece desert series.
2026 — Memoir + museum show
“Where Light Remains” tour + Hudson retrospective. You are invited.
Journal — News, essays, studio notes
Latest stories & news.
Process videos, exhibition announcements, book excerpts and honest letters about art and life. Click any story to read the full piece.
Open studio first Saturdays, 10–4. 47 Barn Rd, Hudson NY.
2 slots left for Fall 2026. Memory portraits from your archive.
8-week return to art. Next cohort Sept 2026.
Contact — Say hello, collect, collaborate
Let’s make something honest together.
For originals, commissions, press, podcast invites or just to share what a painting stirred in you — I read everything. Replies on Tuesdays from the barn with tea.