Roberts has been having her collages and paintings shown in New York, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, and at Art Basel in Miami; collected by the Whitney Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and purchased by an entertainer you may have heard of: Beyoncé.
Please note: This recognition wasn’t because Roberts’ art underwent some drastic change that made it more palatable to the larger art world. It’s just that the art world finally opened its eyes to what’s been in front of it for years. Roberts creates absorbing images of African American children, each face a collage of parts of faces from different photographs atop a body painted by Roberts though sometimes with other body parts – hands, arms, legs, some of them from photos of adults – pasted onto the form. The juxtapositions of youth and age, of vulnerability and power, play with time, simultaneously showing us the adults these youth will become and the children that all adults once were. Always, the collages provide telling social commentary about cultural representations of beauty, identity, and racism.
In 2020, Roberts is receiving a new measure of recognition at home. The Contemporary Austin is mounting a solo exhibition of new work by the artist – her first one in Texas. Curated by Heather Pesanti, the museum’s chief curator and director of curatorial affairs, it will include collages and paintings, plus a pair of new interactive sound, text, and video sculptures and a figurative mural for the exterior of the Jones Center, commissioned by the museum. “Deborah Roberts: I’m” will open Sept. 12 and run through Jan. 21, 2031. For more information, visit www.thecontemporaryausin. org.
This article appears in January 3 • 2020.