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Roberto Voorbij (1974) lives and works in Amsterdam, holds a bachelor degree in Visual arts and Art History from the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht and has attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he took classes from a.o. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle during the late 1990s. Nominated for the ‘Prince Bernhard Fund’ and ‘Piet Bakker Prize’ for his graduation exhibition (video piece ‘Everyday’) and more recently for the ‘Artist in Action Prize’. Voorbij is an interdisciplinary artist apart from working with ‘ready made’ materials, he works with 3D Software, video and (digital) collage.
Besides (national) identity are commerciality and public space recurring themes in Voorbij's work. What highly fascinates him about this is the underlying history, politics and marketing strategy of our seemingly neutral environment. His works are often socially critical. Another recurring theme concerns the art world / art market and the way in which the artist manifests itself here, as well as the autonomy of the artwork that’s being questioned.
In addition to a representation by online gallery Saatchi Art, Voorbij is represented by Leontia Gallery in London and Klein Editions in Manchester. He is also part of the artists' collective Popinnart. Last year his short film 'The Ideal Crash' was shown during the 'Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen' and also in the Dortmunder U and East China Normal University - Shanghai, as part of the May collection of 'The One Minutes'. From 2019 one of his artist portraits will be part of the traveling group exhibition 'The World of Frida' in the United States.
The digital collages of the series ‘Artist Portraits’ all follow the same concept; an artist portrait in which the face is replaced by a significant work of this artist. Originally commissioned by ARTISTS NOT ARMIES the series consists of about 40 works now. In a sense, each portrait has its own interpretation, its own story. More generally you could say that these works deal with representation and identity, the artist as a work of art, art as representation of the maker, the group identity.
More info:
Website: http://www.robertovoorbij.com/
Saatchiart: https://www.saatchiart.com/roo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertovoorbij/