LONDON — A nude figure with frazzled hair lies in bed, sickly colored linens draped haphazardly across their upper body. With fingertips glowing an alarming red, as if inflamed by constant friction, the character grasps a navy blue smartphone and stares catatonically at the screen. Hovering above the device, a vibrant infinity symbol is superimposed onto the intimate scene, emerging as endless, hypnotic loops of energy and mesmerizing digital capture.
This all-too-relatable portrait of modern exhaustion is part of a striking suite of new works by Brooklyn-based artist Robin F. Williams. Her latest exhibition captures the omnipotent techno-dystopia that contemporary society is collectively barreling toward. By extrapolating on the complex, increasingly blurred ways humanity and machines merge, the artist presents a mystical yet chilling vision of another world—one heavily infused with the iconography of modern pop culture and the rich visual language of art history.
The exhibition, aptly titled Act Natural, plunges headfirst into the uncanny without neatly settling into the strange state of things. The too-sleek, frictionless world Williams portrays on canvas exudes both the seductive allure of advanced technology and the immense, quiet horror it elicits from those trapped within its digital ecosystem.
Among the standout pieces in the collection is The Merminator (2026), an oil-on-linen work measuring 60 by 40 inches. The painting brilliantly combines two distinct cultural archetypes from the 1980s: a cold, merciless cyborg assassin and a classic Disney princess. The resulting hybrid is a metallic bot perched precariously on a stone outcrop. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s original mermaid or her animated cinematic counterpart, the figure peers wistfully toward a world it presumably longs to be a part of, yet instinctively realizes it can never truly belong to or be accepted within.
Another pivotal work in the collection is I Am Not a Robot (2026), a symmetric acrylic and oil painting on canvas measuring 48 by 48 inches. The piece takes clear compositional and color palette cues from the pioneering spiritualist abstractions of Hilma af Klint. At the same time, it draws thematic inspiration from Sandro Botticelli’s Renaissance masterpiece Madonna of the Pomegranate, which traditionally presents the titular fruit as a visual metaphor for the human heart and divine life. In Williams’s contemporary iteration, however, the human heart is replaced by the glowing smartphone, which radiates outward as the new, albeit hollow, life-giving source of modern devotion.
The exhibition further expands its thematic scope with pieces like Holy Thirst Trap (2026), a 42-by-30-inch oil-on-linen painting featuring a trio of eerie blue figures huddled closely together to drink from a shared glass. Another major canvas, Language Model (2026), measures 60 by 54 inches and depicts a nude figure on a beach, posing in a kneeling position with an exaggeratedly arched back against a rich palette of deep reds and purples. Meanwhile, Spooky Action at a Distance (2026), rendered in acrylic and oil on a 60-by-44-inch canvas, presents two overlapping nude figures set against a natural backdrop, evoking both quantum entanglement and the emotional isolation fostered by hyper-connectivity.
Through these meticulously crafted works, Williams bridges the gap between historical painting traditions and the anxieties of the digital age. P·P·O·W gallery is presenting Act Natural as a special pop-up exhibition at Frieze’s No. 9 Cork Street location in London, where the collection remains on view through October 24.
