Robert Fairley III aka Rf3theartist is an African American artist born and raised in Nashville,TN. Fairley has been drawing since age 4 and painting since middle school, but the young artist didn’t start taking his art seriously until high school. He received his HS diploma in 2016 then attended Watkins College of Art. After two years the eager artist dropped out of school to pursue art full time. “My reason for quitting was lack of support, creative differences and wanting to be able to create my own art, on my own time, without anyone getting in the way of my dream or shutting down my ideas” Fairley says. His work focuses on the fun and whimsical side of black pop culture. Fairley’s subjects tends to be female rappers and singers within the hip-hop and R&B genre as well as the LGBTQ community. He is hugely inspired by world renowned artist Kehindé Wiley. “I love how his floral and decorative backgrounds invade the space of his African American subjects, so in some of my pieces I’ve decided to put a little twist on that and instead of painting a whole background, I paint with oils on decorative fabrics” states the creative.