Leslie Roberts
Artist Statement:
I diagram language into paint. I record words that typically go unnoticed, then map them into forms I couldn’t otherwise invent. From the relentless flow of data saturating our lives and screens, I make lists. Rosters of news headlines or email excerpts hint at political and social vicissitudes.Samples of text messages record intimate conversation. Excerpts from street signs and subway ads trace the texture of urban life. The mismatched lexicons often make sense in some non-linear, even ridiculous way. On tablet-like panels, I apply self-devised rules to chart handwritten lists into numbered and lettered grids of paint. The resulting structures are pattern-like but satisfyingly irregular. Each panel is a record of its making, and a written and visual artifact of contemporary culture. I record the fine print of ordinary life, in pursuit of extraordinary visual experience.
Artist Biography:
Leslie Roberts makes work driven by color, language, and self-devised rules. She received 2024 grants from the Pollock Krasner and Gottlieb Foundations. She has exhibited in the US and abroad, at galleries including Minus Space, Marlborough Gallery, 57W57Arts, Pierogi, PPOW, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Mckenzie Fine Art, Markel Fine Arts, and the Brooklyn Museum in NYC; the Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); the Wellin Museum (Clinton, NY); and the Hafnarborg Museum (Iceland.) Residencies include Yaddo, Dora Maar House, Ucross, Ragdale, Marble House Project, Monson Arts, Willapa Bay AIR, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Skowhegan. She holds a BA from Yale and an MFA from Queens College. Roberts is Professor Emerita at Pratt Institute. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
AAA:
Member Since: 2023
