"Deborah Roberts: I'm" at Jacksonville's Cummer Museum

"The duty of disobedience" (2020)

Deborah Roberts has been on my radar since I first saw her work at Art Basel in 2018. Her distinctive collages are a bit jarring with their layering of portions of multiple faces on the images of Black children. But I've always found them intriguing, so I was excited when I realized I could combine my trip to North Carolina for my niece's wedding with a stop at to see "Deborah Roberts: I'm" at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville. I was not disappointed.  

The descriptions of the exhibit reference Roberts' use of collage "as a tool of both social critique and self-affirmation." They build upon the work of artists such as Romare Bearden and Faith Ringgold and honor Black cultural traditions from folk art to quilting to West African sculpture. From the beginning, she has used images of Black children as her starting point. Why children? Roberts tells of growing up a young Black girl who began "experiencing death by a thousand cuts" as early as age six. By the time she was 12 she had decided not only to be an artist but to depict children in her work. "They are the hope," she has said, "and we need to get away from stereotypes so they can grow to their full potential." 

In "The duty of disobedience," Roberts cleverly references anti-Black stereotypes in the monkeys with balloons on the smallest girl's t-shirt. The image on the blue t-shirt also contains a monkey along with a weasel and the words "POP! goes the weasel." The "POP!" graphic is a reference to old style comic books and 1960s Pop Art. But it is also a reminder of the sound of guns that are heard too often in our communities. 

"Cock-a-doodle-doo" features a boy pumping himself up. If there's something about him that looks vaguely familiar, it's because Roberts has incorporated slices of Sidney Poitier's face into the image (along with the face of an unknown child). Her works always include partial images of Black people of different ages, nationalities and skin tones.The result is a reference to the collective Black identity rather than a portrait of an individual. 

The pose the boy has assumed might be viewed as humorous given his scrawny arms and legs. He's no Schwarznegger or Incredible Hulk. But he does have a cocky attitude -- hence the rooster on his shirt (which is intended to symbolize the "perils of masculinity"). Or perhaps he's just trying to make himself appear larger than life because he feels threatened. The wall card for the work reveals that, "Robert said that when she was creating this work, she was thinking about 'Tamir Rice, who was shot within eight seconds of the police arriving, not realizing he was a little boy because he pumped himself up.'" 

"La'Condrea is a noun." (2020)

The works above are similar to Roberts' collages that I've seen in the past. But there were some surprises in the exhibit as well. The biggest was her exploration of text art in a series entitled "Pluralism." It's a project that's been on Roberts' mind for several years. The series' genesis can be found in the history of slaves being deprived of the right to name their own children. 

Post-slavery, Blacks regained this basic right but further indignities lay ahead. Many non-Blacks have difficulty with unfamiliar names rooted in Black culture. With the advent of computers and spell checks, names of Black individuals are often flagged with that squiggly red line indicating a spelling error. It's just another form of bias that never would have crossed my mind had I not seen this work. To hear Roberts talk about this project, click here for an excerpt from an interview with Art@Home. I particularly appreciated Roberts' response to the white interviewer's comment that she "got it" because her name is Vanya and she also often gets that squiggly red line. Roberts very diplomatically explained that it really wasn't quite the same. 

"When they look back (No. 3)" (2020)

Roberts' practice has also evolved to include collages on black backgrounds. She was curious to see the extent to which her figures would disappear. To some degree, of course, that depends upon both the color of the figure's clothing and the color of their skin. Black skin comes in many shades, and colorism is a real thing. (In case you're not familiar with the word, colorism is a type of discrimination against people with darker skin tones, typically by people of the same ethnic group or race.) But Roberts is also highlighting the way "the absence of Black girls" from our national conversation as they "disappear into the black background of life."

As to the somewhat awkward title of the exhibit -- "I'm" -- Roberts references Toni Morrison's idea that "Black exists in the middle of the "I'm." We are the apostrophe." By titling her exhibit "I'm," Roberts has said she is telling viewers that Black children are more than that apostrophe living in the middle. 

For a terrific article about Roberts' artistic journey, click here. And for a short video in which Roberts talks about the intention behind her work, click here. "Deborah Roberts: I'm" is at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville through December 4. For more information, click here.