Deborah Roberts
The Contemporary Austin | Jones Center
Black children are dressed in brightly colored clothing and posed in front of stark-white backgrounds. Their limbs are masterfully rendered in paint; their faces, however, are collaged, and the fragments vary in origin. These images appeared in Deborah Roberts’s exhibition “I’m,” the Austin native’s first solo presentation in a Texas museum, organized by the Contemporary Austin’s chief curator, Heather Pesanti. For more than ten years, Roberts has challenged perceptions of race and identity through her intricately constructed portraits. She uses her art to advocate against the violent adultification