Deborah Roberts

Deborah Roberts was born in Austin, Texas in 1962 where she continues to live and work.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Deborah Roberts constructs collages using photographs, magazine clippings, and images from the internet to explore themes of race, beauty, and identity. Roberts’ composite figures of young African girls and women highlight the media’s hyper-sexualisation of the female body by critiquing idealised forms of beauty. Her unique visual language prioritises marginalised narratives whilst fighting discriminatory perceptions of black female experience.

Selected exhibitions include: ‘Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi’, Spelman Museum, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (2018); ‘Reclamation! Pan-African from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection’, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, Virginia, USA (2018); ‘Talisman In The Age Of Difference’, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK (2018); ‘Legacy of the Cool: A Tribute to Barkley L. Hendricks’, MassArt, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2018); ‘Fictions, Studio Museum of Harlem’, New York, New York, USA (2017); ‘I know why the caged bird sings’, Carver Museum, Austin, Texas, USA (2016); ‘Gently Fried’, MACC, Austin, Texas, USA (2015); ‘The House on Mango Street’, National Mexican American Museum, Chicago, Illinois, USA (2015).

GALLERIES

SELECT PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

The Studio Museum, New York
Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; 
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey, 
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs
 
– Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

Work

Exhibitions

  • All That I AM

    All That I AM is an edition series organized by curator Larry Ossei-Mensah in collaboration with Art+Culture Projects that explores contemporary artists’ engagements with the complexities of cultural identity. The fourth installment of this series features Delphine Desane, February James, Tajh Rust, and Vaughn Spann, who all center the human condition and emotion in their work.