Robert Kushner

Kushner draws from a unique range of influences, including Islamic and European textiles, Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Pierre Bonnard, Tawaraya Sotatsu, Ito Jakuchu, Qi Baishi, and Wu Changshuo.

Kushner's work combines organic representational elements with abstracted geometric forms as a background in a way that is both decorative and modernist.

"[citation needed]Kushner's 2010 installation, Scriptorium: Devout Exercises of the Heart, is a group of over one thousand drawings of flowers and plants on book pages that date from 1500 to 1920.

[6] He has also completed commissions at Gramercy Tavern and Maialino restaurants in New York City,[7] Union Square in Tokyo, The Ritz Carlton Highlands in Lake Tahoe, CA, and Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC.

Kushner's work has been exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, and Japan and has been included in the Whitney Biennial three times[9] and twice at the Venice Biennale in Italy.

[15] His first performance, entitled Costumes for Moving Bodies, occurred in 1971 during the artist's senior exhibition at the University of California San Diego.

The first, Costumes Constructed and Eaten, was presented at the Jack Glenn Gallery in Corona del Mar, California, and the second, Robert Kushner and Friends Eat Their Clothes, in New York.