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Robert Beatty (artist)
American artist and musician (born 1981) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Robert Beatty (/ˈbeɪti/ BAY-tee;[1] born 1981)[2] is an American artist and musician based in Lexington, Kentucky,[3][4] best known for his noise band Hair Police, his solo project Three Legged Race, and most recently for his work designing album covers, including Tame Impala's Currents (2015),[5] Kesha's Rainbow (2017), and limited-edition artwork for The Weeknd's Dawn FM (2022).
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Early life
Robert Beatty was born in 1981 on a cattle and tobacco farm in rural Kentucky near Nicholasville—"one of the most beautiful places in the world", according to Beatty.[6][7] Growing up, he "constantly" drew, teaching himself[8] and taking inspiration from MTV's series Liquid Television, Terry Gilliam's animated work, and Mad.[5] He began to experiment with his family camcorder, exploring circuit bending and video feedback,[8] and during high school later started investigating and playing music with a friend (Beatty was fond of music from Warp Records) and designing concert posters.[9]
Beatty never attended art school (or college at all),[10][11][12] instead moving to Lexington after high school.[6] He also worked for a time at radio station WRFL,[13] and supported himself for years working at a gas station and as a janitor.[6]
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Artwork
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Beatty's graphic design work employs a distinctive style which has been called "trippy",[14] "nostalgic",[15] "psychedelic",[11] "dark",[16] and "mystifying;"[17] Beatty tries to evoke a "weird sense of wonder."[7] He began working by hand and today mostly uses Adobe Illustrator and an old version of Photoshop[12] running on a ten-year-old computer[5] to perform his "digital airbrushing",[15] replicating and subverting traditional graphic design techniques using software.[18] However, Beatty says that his work often "goes back to drawing, because that's the simplest thing."[7] A prolific artist, Beatty has designed over 75 album covers;[2] after he decided to pursue creating art for other bands instead of just his own,[6] his album artwork rose in popularity with his covers for Challenger by Burning Star Core in 2008 and Tame Impala's Currents in 2015.[19][1][11]
In addition to album art, Beatty's illustration and design work has grown to include concert flyers,[20] magazines,[21] book covers,[22] fashion design,[23] music videos,[24] and news feature illustrations, with clients including Wired and the New York Times.[7][25][26] He has also released an artists' book, Floodgate Companion (2016), which Beatty "structured... more like an experimental film than a book." Beatty also designed the artwork for the soundtrack to the video game Thumper.[16] His video work has been featured at the Anthology Film Archives.[10] In 2019, Beatty created a lyric video for Cage the Elephant's song "House of Glass", from the album Social Cues.[4]
In 2018 he contributed "surreal"[27] art for use in fashion house Dries Van Noten's fall-winter 2018 collection,[23][28][29] with his work featured prominently in window displays at European retail locations.[5]
Beatty designed the cover art for historian and photographer Roger Steffens's anthology photobook The Family Acid: California (2019).[26][30] His work Place Holder appeared at 21c Museum Hotel Lexington in 2019–20,[5] and his concert posters were featured in the 2020 exhibit Cricket Press, John Lackey, and Robert Beatty: Gig Posters and Music Ephemera at the Living Arts and Science Center in Lexington.[31]
His influences include Cal Schenkel, Kenneth Anger, Piotr Kamler, Gary Panter,[1] Terry Gilliam,[11] and Lillian Schwartz.[12] Beatty also credits the film Fantastic Planet (1973).[5]
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Music
Beatty performs electronic and noise music solo under his own name and formerly performed under the names Three Legged Race and Ed Sunspot,[32][33][34] co-founded Hair Police in 2001[35] (who went on to open for a Sonic Youth tour),[6] and is or has been a member of experimental and electronic bands Warmer Milks,[1] Burning Star Core, Eyes and Arms of Smoke,[3] and Lexington collective Resonant Hole.[32][11] He was also a member of Ulysses alongside Apples in Stereo members Robert Schneider and John Ferguson.[32] He records and produces music on old iPhones, stating he works with a "scavenger mentality" and "[doesn't] like to buy new things to make art or music with – I like to wait for things to come to me or to find things at thrift stores".[5]
In 2014 he released the album Soundtracks for Takeshi Murata under his own name.[36]
Beatty also masters music, including Public Housing's 2014 self-titled album.[35]
Discography
 |
- Three Legged Race – Persuasive Barrier (2012)[37]
- Robert Beatty – Soundtracks for Takeshi Murata (2014)
Album art
|
- AIDS Wolf – Ma Vie Banale Avant-Garde (2012)[38]
- AMOR[1] – "Paradise/In Love An Arc"[39] (2017)
- AMOR – Sinking Into a Miracle (2018)[40]
- Ariel Pink[1] – Dedicated to Bobby Jameson[32] (2017)
- Bedouine – Bedouine[1] (2017)[41]
- Bedouine – Bird Songs of a Killjoy (2019)[42]
- Burning Star Core – Challenger[19] (2008)
- C. Spencer Yeh – The RCA Mark II[43] (2017)[44]
- Charlie Hilton – Palana (2016)[40]
- Chris Forsyth & Solar Motel Band — The Rarity of Experience Pts. I & II (2016)
- Chris Forsyth – All Time Present (2019)[40]
- Cola Boyy – Black Boogie Neon (2018)[40]
- Cross – Die Forever[12] (2012)[45]
- Damaged Bug – Cold Hot Plumbs[12] (2015)[46]
- Dent May[1] – Across the Multiverse (2017)[47]
- Don't DJ – Musique Acéphale[48] (2017)[49]
- The Dream Syndicate – These Times (2019)
- Drugdealer – The End of Comedy[50] (2016)[51]
- Drugdealer – Raw Honey (2019)[52]
- Ed Schrader's Music Beat – Riddles (2018)[40]
- Eric Lanham – The Sincere Interruption[19] (2012)[53][54]
- Fielded – Drip Drip (2018)[40]
- The Flaming Lips — Oczy Mlody[3] (2017)
- Forma — Physicalist[55] (2016)[56]
- Ga'an[57] – Black Equus[33] (2011)[58]
- GUM – The Underdog (2018)[40]
- Hassara – backyard I-III[38] (2007)[59]
- Idiot Glee[60] – Paddywhack[11] (2016)[61]
- Kesha – Rainbow[62] (2017)
- Knife Knights – 1 Time Mirage (2018)[40]
- La Big Vic – Cold War[19] (2013)
- Lord Raja – A Constant Moth (2014)[40]
- Major Stars – Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy (2019)[63]
- Mdou Moctar – Ilana: The Creator (2019)[40]
- Mister Heavenly[1] – Boxing the Moonlight[64] (2017)
- Mondo Drag – Mondo Drag[65](2015)
- Mort Garson – Mother Earth's Plantasia (2019 reissue)[66]
- Neon Indian[7] – "Annie" (2015)
- Oneohtrix Point Never — Commissions I (2014)
- Oneohtrix Point Never – Russian Mind[6] (2009)[67]
- Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (2020)
- Outer Space – Akashic Record (2012)[38]
- Peaking Lights[14] – Lucifer[12] (2012)
- The Phantom Band – Strange Friend[9] (2014)
- Real Estate[1] – "Easy"[19] (2017)
- Real Estate – In Mind (2017)
- Raglani – Husk[12] (2012)[68]
- Roland Kayn – A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound (2017)[40]
- Salvia Plath[69] – The Bardo Story[9] (2013)[70]
- Secret Circuit — Afterlife (2013)
- Sheer Mag – A Distant Call (2019)[71]
- Steve Hauschildt – Dissolvi[72] (2018)
- Tame Impala – "Cause I'm a Man" (2015)[7]
- Tame Impala — Currents[24] (2015)
- Thee Oh Sees — A Weird Exits (2016)
- Oh Sees — Orc (2017)
- Three Legged Race – Persuasive Barrier (2012)[38]
- Tim Heidecker – Fear of Death (2020)[73]
- U.S. Girls – In a Poem Unlimited[74] (2018)
- The Weeknd – Dawn FM (2022)
- White Suns[1] – Psychic Drift (2017)[75]
- William Tyler – Goes West[76] (2019)
- Wooden Wand[6] – Briarwood[77] (2011)[38]
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Bibliography
- Beatty, Robert (2016). Floodgate Companion. Portland, OR: Floating World Comics. ISBN 9781942801986. OCLC 1033512652.
References
External links
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