Artist's Name:

Keisha E. Roberts

Keisha Roberts draws inspiration from African and African American history and culture, and the striking graphic composition of African textiles. Roberts forges passions for art, history, and culture into fine art, exhibition experiences, research projects, lectures, workshops, and works of non-fiction.

Roberts was the project coordinator for the nationally heralded oral history project Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in Jim Crow South at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University . She wrote the chapter Resistance and Political Struggles in the award-winning book Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Jim Crow South.

Roberts has curated and been exhibited in many exhibitions. She holds degrees in African and African American Studies, History, and Women's Studies from Duke University . She is currently studying collections management and preventive conservation in the Museum Studies Program in Collection Care at George Washington University .

I feel personally charged to preserve and interpret African Americans' singular and shared experiences of displacement, loss, joy, and resolve. The rich storytelling heritage of quilting provides a natural medium for recalling and recording those experiences and memories. Each quilt I make is a visual narrative in cloth. Each quilt keeps a memory safe.

Those memories take shape on art quilts that fuse fine and vernacular artistic modalities. I painstakingly transform the canvas used in most of my quilt tops into a textural study that mimics leather, which is a prevalent material in masks and talismanic amulets made across the African continent. The surface design features themes that often reoccur in my work, including exaggerated thread length and thickness, a succinct use of color and embellishments, and a measured use of hand and machine quilting that allows texture and space to dominate the visual space of the work. The backing of each quilt features traditional materials and a graphic composition often associated with the improvisational genre of African American quilting.

My current photographic and non-figurative contemporary quilts are infused with a strong sense of cultural memory and continuity. Each complete art quilt is a synthesis of cherished and changing quilting techniques. These modern and traditional constructions bring the memory of centuries of American craft into the present.

More information can be found on the artist at: www.keisharoberts.com

Keisha E. Roberts
919.332.8992