Robert Pettena, born in Penbury, England in 1970, is a well-known photographic artist active in the United Kingdom and Italy. He has participated in the Venice Biennale in Italy in 2007 and 2015. He is also a photography professor at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts. .

He spent much of his adolescence and young adulthood between Brixton, London, and San Giovenale, Reggello, Italy. In 1990, he moved to Florence to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he later taught.

Roberto Pettena is an artist and traveler who explores the wonders and contradictions of the world, capturing the conflicting aspects of reality in a poetic and provocative way. In addition to photography, video art, and installation art, his work also includes performances and site-specific projects involving participants other than himself, and he sometimes invites his students to work together through Academy of Fine Arts courses and workshops. art projects. These projects often come from underground art, where Petina discovers a potential and energy that he can transfer and channel into various situations, triggering sensory short-circuits and mutations in the viewer.