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Beth Robinson | Art Doll Sculptor

@strangedolls

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Sculpting macabre Strange Dolls since 2003.
📍St. Louis, MO
Work currently available through @curioartgallery | @poetictigergallery | @citymuseum

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My name is Beth Robinson and I am the artist behind "Strange Dolls."

I grew up primarily in the Bible Belt, the middle child of a Southern Baptist preacher and a descendant of Appalachian coal miners.

Genetically shaped by coal miners who survived the dark and socially groomed by a church that feared it, that combination of resilience and condemnation shapes the artist I am today.

'Strange Dolls' illuminates what lives beneath the surface, not what we are told should exist. Becoming a doll artist seems inevitable. At least in hindsight.

I began creating Strange Dolls in 2003. What started as an experiment with polymer clay became an obsession. Then a career. Then a body of work spanning two decades.

In the early 2000s, influenced by Susanna Oroyan, I was on a mission to move doll making beyond craft and into the world of fine art. I didn’t think to ask permission. I simply changed the definition.

Today Strange Dolls have been exhibited around the world, are held in private collections, and have been featured in numerous publications and media outlets.

This is the world of Strange Dolls.

Photographer: @michelle_ross_creative
Location: @sayartstudios

#bethrobinsonstrangedolls #strangedolls #creativeprocess #artistbio #stlmade #behindthescenes #stlouisartist #gritsgirl #preacherskid #biblebelt by @strangedolls

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7 months ago

✨Where to find my Strange Dolls✨

🕸️ www.strangedolls.net

🖼️ @curioartgallery

🐯 @poetictigergallery

🦊 @crackfoxstl

#supportartists #supporthandmade #supportlocalartists #stlmade #feedanartist #gothicaesthetic #gothstyle #gothvibes #darkart #strangedolls #strangedollsbybethrobinson by @strangedolls

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10 months ago

Isn't this beautifully haunting? 🖤

“The Regnant” by @strangedolls , featured in our show “The Coven”, is available!

Enter the world of “The Coven” and discover the full collection of dark and mysterious works on our website. ☺️

https://www.curiogaleria.com/category/thecoven

Payment plans can be arranged upon request.
For any questions about this piece, feel free to send us a message or email!

#thecoven #artgallery #artshow #artcollector #spookyseason by @strangedolls

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13 days ago

A peek into the Wolpertinger exhibit with a few of my favorite things from the exhibit and the Dead Things room.

Also. I honest to god thought I was having An Experience the night of the opening when I saw unusual lights in the sky. Turns out it was just nighttime sky divers.

Wolpertinger: Nature and the Uncanny
@citymuseum / Buffalo bob’s, 3rd floor
Exhibition on view until November 1st 2026.
Thanks so much to @crankyyellow for putting this exhibit together!

#citymuseumstl #stlartists #oddities #wolpertinger taken in City Museum, St Louis, MO by @strangedolls

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18 days ago

The Stress Test
Wax paper, thread, polished coyote teeth, 3D-printed resin crow skull, marbles, faux pearls, reticulated foam
16” x 16”

Wax paper is crumpled, torn, stitched, pulled at the seams until it breaks… then stitched layer upon layer until the whole is stronger than its parts. The title comes from the test a doctor uses to measure the heart under pressure.

Coyote teeth crown her. My favorite misunderstood creature, coyotes have been hunted across North America for over a century, and where they’re culled, their litters often grow larger. At the center sits a resin crow skull, a gift from a St. Louis artist. The foam lattice woven through her is a type of plastic that is made by stripping away the cell walls until only the skeleton remains.

This piece explores reinvention and resilience.

Stitched Narratives exhibit
@poetictigergallery
September 18 – October 7, 2026
Link in bio by @strangedolls

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a month ago

A Wolpertinger is a creature from Bavarian folklore. An animal stitched together from mismatched taxidermy parts and sold to tourists as proof that something impossible existed.

Curator, @crankyyellow , has gathered 40 local artists that delve into nature’s ability to delight, deceive and captivate us. Through the use of folklore, magic, woodland mystique, and imagination these artists have built visual narratives around the natural world’s beauty and obscurity and human’s place in it.

I’ll be showing older work from the Strange Dolls archive.

✦ WOLPERTINGER: NATURE AND THE UNCANNY ✦
September 18 – November 1
City Museum, 750 N 16th St
Beatnik Bob’s, 3rd Floor
@citymuseum

Opening Reception: Friday, September 18, 7–11pm.

Exhibit included with General Admission or Member Pass. Reception included with City Nights: Oktoberfest (21+). taken in City Museum, St Louis, MO by @strangedolls

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a month ago

The Brille Scorched Paper, Sturgeon Scutes, Snake Skin, Thread, Wood 8” x 12”
SOLD 🔴

The brille is the clear scale that covers a snake’s eye. They see through a fixed transparent window. While the snake’s shed skin is delicate and tears easily, the part that admitted light is the part that survives hardest. Her headdress is made from the snake’s face and sturgeon scutes, gifted to me by artist @tomdailey9 ‘s care of Missouri wildlife and @nellasaura.art chosen family of snakes.

Threads reach outward from her headdress, placed before I knew that a sturgeon carries its sense of taste in soft threads on a body otherwise encased in bone.

This piece was created for the @curioartgallery Flora|Fauna exhibit.

Curio Art Gallery
“Small Works Show - Flora|Fauna”
September 5 - September 30
Online Group Show taken in Curio Art Gallery by @strangedolls

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a month ago

Aurora Paper, Hawthorn, Longnose Gar jaw, Thread, Wood 8” x 12”

[SOLD] 🔴

The name “Aurora” means new beginnings, rooted in Roman mythology as the goddess of the dawn.

Wax paper carries light through itself rather than across its surface. Layers of torn and scorched scraps create the body of the sculpture, it holds the illumination inside the figure. In her hand she holds a longnose gar jaw, gifted to me by artist @tomdailey9, who walks the riverbanks cleaning up fishing line to protect Missouri wildlife. Missouri hawthorn is her crown, a testament to the prickly and unpleasant edge of the natural world, which evolves to arm itself in defense of its own kingdom.

This piece was created for @curioartgallery’s Flora|Fauna exhibit and is available through September 30.

Curio Art Gallery
“Small Works Show - Flora|Fauna”
September 5 - September 30
Online Group Show

Link is my linktree and here:
https://www.curiogaleria.com/product/beth-robinson-aurora taken in Curio Art Gallery by @strangedolls

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a month ago

“Beautifully Scary IV” Call For Dark Art Deadline is Sunday September 27, 2026 at 11:59CST.
Submit at https://sayartstudios.com/pages/calls.html

Exhibition opening is Saturday October 17th from 6-9PM.

Welcome and thank you to our guest judge, Beth Robinson, for agreeing to select the award recipients for this lovely dark art event!

Beth Robinson is a sculptor and mixed-media artist who has worked under the name Strange Dolls since 2003. Her figurative work is exhibited and held in private collections internationally and has appeared in university-level sculpture textbooks and numerous art and pop-culture publications, most recently at Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis, MO.

Her advocacy for the dark art community is longstanding, and she has always looked for ways to provide opportunities for and shine light on artists working in the fringes and tackling uncomfortable themes. For ten years she curated and ran the annual “Art of Horror” event at S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Vermont, alongside invitational shows like “Conjuring, She Rises,” a feminist exhibition held on the anniversary of the Salem Witch Trials, and “Husk,” an exploration of parasitic relationships. More recently she curated “Broken Hearts” in Missouri and judged the mixed-media exhibition “It’s All In The Mix” at Artisans in the Loop.

She maintains a regular studio practice in Saint Louis, Missouri with her trusty companion, a taxidermy coyote named Toby. You can find her work online at www.strangedolls.net. @strangedolls by @strangedolls

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2 months ago

🎨 Artist Spotlight: Beth Robinson 🎨

To create my Strange Dolls, I sculpt the dolls using polymer clay or air-dry clays and then
design and sew the outfits using fabrics with history. I incorporate unusual organic
materials into my creations, including human hair, teeth, sweet gum, snakeskin, and bones
- elements that were once living or bear visible traces of transformation.

Dolls are icons of perfection, innocence, and control. Through Strange Dolls, I challenge
those standards by creating “dolls” that are unconventional, iconoclastic, and, decidedly,
not perfect. Each one is a confrontation between social expectation and defiance, between what we show the world and what we conceal.

Beth Robinson is a self-taught sculptor and mixed-media artist who began creating her Strange Dolls in 2003. What started as an experiment in polymer clay quickly evolved into a signature body of work that merges sculpting, painting, and sewing into expressive, handcrafted art dolls.

Her Strange Dolls have attracted a worldwide following and are held in private collections from New York to Japan. Robinson’s work has been featured in numerous art and pop-culture publications, as well as in radio, podcasts, television, and film.

After two decades in Burlington, Vermont, Robinson relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where she continues to expand her distinctive practice. Her recent work can be seen at Say Art Studios – The Gallery at 123 in Pacific, MO, and online at www.strangedolls.net.

📲 For more of their art - follow @strangedolls

💬 Show some love in the comments and let us know which piece speaks to you most! taken in St. Louis, Missouri by @strangedolls

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2 months ago

Last Call!

@reedgallery closing reception for the Small Works Invitational. This Saturday from 12-3pm. by @strangedolls

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2 months ago

Husk
Coffee filters, Mississippi River rocks, hawthorn thorns, eucalyptus, glass marbles, snakeskin, thread
16” x 16”

Mississippi River rocks emerge from the forehead. The river that shaped my early years in Southern Mississippi now runs outside my door at mid-life. Thorns from the hawthorn, the protective tree of folklore, guard the folds where dried eucalyptus presses in. The eyes are glass marbles veiled in shed snakeskin.

Available through August 29:
Duane Reed Gallery
Small Works Invitational
4729 McPherson Ave, St. Louis, MO 63108
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday,
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM taken in Duane Reed Gallery by @strangedolls

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2 months ago