ABXY: BLK & BLUE by Malik Roberts Opening Reception- Thursday September 27th

7-9pm
ABXY Gallery
9 Clinton Street

ABXY presents Blk & Blue, an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and creative new media by artist Malik Roberts. Blk & Blue marks Roberts’ second solo exhibition with the gallery, following the artist’s 2017 show “Stolen,” which focused on the appropriation of black culture in contemporary media.

Blk & Blue explores the topic of mental illness in communities of color. Roberts’ work often spotlights contemporary social issues: by breaking down formal elements in his paintings, the artist creates compositions, which convey the complexities and tensions typically masked by his subjects’ physical appearance. Inspired by Picasso’s Blue Period, for this exhibition, Roberts represents the everyday misfortunes of the oppressed in a palette primarily composed of blues and grays. Like Picasso’s somber depictions of middle-class Spaniards upended by the Industrial Revolution, in this exhibition, Roberts ennobles his subjects while shining light on the societal conditions responsible for their hardship. In so doing, the artist presents a new, American iconography for a country ever-defined by color.

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