Deborah Roberts is an American

contemporary artist Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

living and working in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. Roberts is a mixed media

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

artist whose figurative works depict the complexity of Black subjecthood and explores themes of race, identity, and gender politics taking on the subject of otherness as understood against the backdrop of existing societal norms of race and beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the US and Europe. Roberts’s work is in the collections of the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York;

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California. Roberts was named 2023 Texas Medal of Arts Award Honoree for the Visual Arts. Roberts was selected to participate in the Robert Rauschenberg Residency (2019) and is a recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant (2018), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016), and the Ginsburg-Klaus Award Fellowship (2014). She received her MFA from Syracuse University, New York. She lives and works in Austin, Texas. Roberts is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and Vielmetter Los Angeles.

Work

Roberts’s work challenges the existing notion of a universal beauty, arguing instead for a more inclusive and subjective understanding of visual culture. By combining found and manipulated images with hand drawn and painted details, Roberts leverages the artistic practice of collage to uplift and dimensionalize her subjects, often taking the form of young girls and, more increasingly, Black boys. The boys and girls who populate her work, while invariably bound to the complicated the problematic narratives defining

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

and

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

, are, at the same time, free and able to forge their own paths and form their own identities. The show "Deborah Roberts: I’m" traveled to the Contemporary Austin, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Art + Practice in Los Angeles, and the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. She has also exhibited at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia; LACMA, Los Angeles, California; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, among various other institutions. Roberts’s work was included in the 2022 exhibition ''Women Painting Women'' at the

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

Collections

Roberts's work is in the collections of: * Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA * Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA * Scottish National Galleries, Scotland, UK * SFMOMA San Francisco, CA * Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX * Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL * Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY * The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY * Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA * Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ * Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL * Spelman College Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA * The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY * Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA * Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Deborah Living people 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists Artists from Austin, Texas University of North Texas alumni Syracuse University alumni American collage artists American contemporary artists 1962 births