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I

f you were to walk through Facebook’s Menlo Park,

California, headquarters you would come to a stair-

case where you would become intimately involved

in the illusionistic world of Robert Minervini’s art.

Beginning at the bottom of the stairs, facing the rocks

of the shore, you would ascend through a view of the bay

and the city beyond upward to the underside of freeways.

Descending from the top, the illusion is of being able

to walk out along the freeway rather than down the

stairs. In the 40-by-50-foot acrylic, Sinking Cities, 2014,

the human intrusion on the pristine bay is inescapable

both visually and viscerally. Later this year, another of

his concepts will be reproduced in a 9-by-31-foot mosaic

and glass mural permanently installed in SFO Terminal

1, a project of the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Minervini, who was born in Secaucus, New Jersey,

went to Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, spending a

year in Rome. While attending Tyler he was first hired

as an intern and later produced his own projects with

the Philadelphia Mural Art Program. “The murals had

a great impact on my work,” he says.

“I was classically influenced as an undergrad,” he

explains. “In Rome I was able to continue my interest

in Baroque painting and, especially, Baroque theater

painting. When I returned I was surprised to experi-

ence a culture shock. I wanted to simulate that experi-

ence of being out of my element a bit and having to

find new bearings and chose to go to grad school at

the San Francisco Art Institute.” He received his MFA

there in 2009.

In California, he has also been involved in creating

murals and has been artist in residence at the Kala Art

Institute in Berkeley, Root Division in San Francisco

and Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito. He has

Robert Minervini’s debut solo show at Hirschl & Adler Modern

explores the past and present of still lifes. BY JOHN O’HERN

1

Robert Minervini in

his studio with Surface

Tension. Courtesy the

artist and Hirschl & Adler

Modern, NY.

2

Cognitive Dissonance,

acrylic on linen, 42 x 62".

Courtesy the artist and

Hirschl & Adler Modern,

NY. Photo © Cary

Whittier.

2