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עמוד:
’Nobody s Darling : New Works by Deborah Roberts –––Exhibitions Austin , Texas ’Nobody s Darling : Women and Representation Curator : Jessi DiTillio –May August 2017 The Christian - Green Gallery Austin , Texas J isse D i oillTi Based in Austin , Deborah Roberts has been engaging issues of beauty , race , and women ’ s bodies for the past twenty years . The medium of collage is central to Roberts ’ s practice . By lifting and remixing various sources of imagery , she demonstrates the way identities are likewise pieced together through media , social interaction , culture , and politics . The hybrid fi gures that emerge from Roberts ’ s collage process are young girls , symbolically formed by the con fi ning and controlling depictions of women propagated in American media . The characters seem constrained by the images that fi gure them , yet simultaneously their youth lends them a certain freedom , a certain rebelliousness . They cannot quite be contained . Like all children , they appear both innocent and monstrous , demure and confrontational . Their identity is vulnerable to the forces of representation around them , but it is also un fi xed and fi lled with potential . In the text - based prints , Roberts mines the vast and creative wellspring of Black women ’ s names . Contemporary creative Black naming practices exploded in popularity in the early 1960 s , with the re - emergence of Black separatist politics . Through repetition and design , the names spelled out by Roberts become abstract , aesthetic objects , leaving us with thought - provoking questions . How does a name both reveal and conceal ? How is a name deemed “ Black " ? How might such names present an avenue for creative self - empowerment ? On the other hand , what sorts of ideas precede a woman named Tawonda or Quonish ? Roberts asks her audience to confront their own assumptions and associations about such names while also presenting the tradition of culturally speci fi c naming for deeper contemplation than it usually receives . ✦ < Deborah Roberts , Tug - -of War , 2017 , acrylic , ink , charcoal , photocollage , and pencil on paper , 76 × 56 Artwork © Deborah Roberts , image courtesy of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin , photograph by Mark Doroba דבורה רוברטס , , Tug - of - War , 2017 אקריליק , דיו , פחם , קולאז ' צילומי ועיפרון על נייר , 76 × 56 << Deborah Roberts , Power Dance , 2017 , mixed - media photocollage on paper , 76 × 56 Artwork © Deborah Roberts , image courtesy of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin , photograph by Mark Doroba דבורה רוברטס , , Power Dance , 2017 קולאז ' צילומי בטכניקה מעורבת על נייר , 76 × 56
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