Deborah Roberts
(American, b. 1962)
Venus the great, 2019
Mixed media collage on paper
23.68 x 17.68''
Courtesy of Deborah Roberts and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Deborah Roberts’s Venus the great, like much of her collage work, is comprised of several images of African American girls, in this case, found photographs of tennis legend Venus Williams as a young woman. Roberts often focuses on Black girls at an age when they may first become aware of the challenges they will face in a society that favors white standards of beauty.
Roberts combines fragments of different features, skin tones, hairstyles, and clothing to imagine new, expansive notions of identity; the variations inherent in her collage materials highlight the complexity of Black subjecthood. Roberts says, “these faces are demanding, they’re asking you to see their humanity and individuality.” Roberts’s young girls are defiant, sassy, strong, and empowered, forging their own paths as they push back on constructs perpetuated within both white and Black communities.
Biography
Roberts was born in Austin, TX, where she continues to live and work. She earned her MFA from Syracuse University, NY. Her work has been widely exhibited in the US and Europe, including an upcoming solo show of new works at The Contemporary in Austin in January 2021. She was an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva, FL, in early 2020. Roberts is the recipient of numerous awards, including grants from Anonymous Was a Woman (2018) and Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2016), and a Ginsberg-Klaus Award Fellowship (2014). Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; Scottish National Galleries, Edinburgh; Brooklyn Museum; Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM); the Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; among others. Roberts is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.
