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]
Artwork
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
photobookThe 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]
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]