Deborah Roberts, Pool boys, 2019, (detail), Mixed media collage on canvas, image courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
06
Nov
2023
/
11
Aug
2023
Deborah Roberts: Come walk in my shoes
Deborah Roberts: Come walk in my shoes is the first solo museum exhibition in New Mexico of Roberts’ work. For her exhibition at SITE SANTA FE Roberts presents a selection of figurative collages and paintings combining found images with hand- painted details centered on the experiences of Black boyhood in the United States.
Come walk in my shoes intimately shares the complex, multi-dimensional and layered lives of Black boys while creating and holding space for their innocence and vulnerability, allowing them to just be children, to take up space, to explore, and to be seen.
In tandem, Roberts’ work will occupy SITE SANTA FE’s Billboard Project, a public art initiative expanding exhibitions beyond the bounds of the traditional gallery space. Here, Roberts expands the conversation on how Black children navigate their Blackness and childhood. This work questions stereotypes and creates a space for a more nuanced and empathetic understanding around the experience of Black children in America. Seeing their humanity, Roberts offers a powerful critique of systemic injustices, society’s expectations and the many biases that continue to impact their lives.
About the Artist
Deborah Roberts (American, born 1962 in Austin, Texas) is a mixed media artist whose figurative works depict the complexity of Black subjecthood and explores themes of race, identity, and gender politics. 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, New York; Brooklyn Museum, 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.