Deborah Roberts: Consequences of being Opening: Wednesday 11 February, 6-8 pm

Deborah Roberts' first institutional solo exhibition in New York, Consequences of being, opens at FLAG Art Foundation. Bringing together large-format paintings, works on paper and, for the first time in her career, ceramic sculpture, the exhibition signals an expansion of Roberts’ practice and the intensification of her research into the history of colonialism. Continuing to use collage to explore identity as something that can be fragmentated and rebuilt while reclaiming found materials and images in the process, in these new works Roberts focuses on how Black bodies are seen, positioned and understood on a global scale.

Consequences of being broadens the historical scope of Roberts’ reflection on the impact of colonialism on Black communities to encompass the histories of Germany, the Netherlands and South Africa—nations deeply implicated in the exploitation of both land and people. In these new paintings and works on papershe repurposes and ultimately transforms the imagery and text of grocery store signage, referencing foods once discarded or given to enslaved peoples that have now been reconsidered as delicacies by contemporary standards. Roberts explores how these legacies continue to shape cultural identity, economic access and the politics of consumption today. Though she addresses the historical experience of dehumanization faced by Black communities—affixing to her figures linguistic traces from food packaging, for example—she also imbues her subjects with presence and spirituality, suggesting that instead of continuing to be erased or co-opted, they may survive and even flourish on terms of their own making.

Roberts’ paintings and works on paper are built through a unique approach to collage that combines found and manipulated images with hand-drawn and painted details to create figures—young black girls and boys—that are fundamentally hybrid in nature. By constructing her subjects with imagery drawn from the social and economic worlds they must navigate, Roberts foregrounds the precarity these children so often face due to racial stereotyping, a process that can limit or restrict the development of their identities and sense of agency. She further emphasizes the isolation and objectification of the body through her signature compositional approach that sees each figure or group of figures surrounded by or set within an expanse of white, empty space, an effect that heightens our attention to the way Black bodies are centered, measured and read in relation to whiteness, a structure that relegates them to second-class citizenship.

The exhibition will feature the debut of a new ceramic sculpture, Zuri. A bust of a young girl, Zuri takes its name from the Swahili word meaning ‘beautiful’ or ‘good,’ with the association serving as affirmation of the cultural lineages and ancestral traditions that Black communities continue to draw from. By presenting Black children at scale and requiring viewers to look downward rather than upward, these sculptures highlight the metaphorical position of Black children in the world and as such, they ask the viewer to see what is too often overlooked and what Roberts’ work has always advocated for: the inherent value, potential and brilliance of Black children.

Consequences of being, curated by Elizabeth Dunbar, will be on view at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, from 16 May - 27 September 2026.