Rob Ventura (b. 1989) is an emerging mixed-media artist whose practice is concerned with contemporary approaches to painterly abstraction. His work includes paintings, ceramics, and drawings which depict abstracted representations of poisonous flowers, as well as other references to the natural world. These organic arrangements evoke non-binary interpretations of pleasure and pain; seduction and destruction; organic matter and artificial concoction; love and narcissistic preoccupation; and, the creation of meaning and existential nihilism. The surfaces of Ventura’s work whether it be oil paint, ceramic, charcoal, or oil pastel are often applied as a dense web of interlocking gestures. This brushwork harkens back to New York School abstraction, yet, is infused with a dystopian grunge-rock aesthetic.

Ventura lives and works in Hoboken, NJ