Crisscrossing

In this collage, Deborah Roberts constructs the figure of a young Black girl, a pair of clasped hands extending sideways from her patterned blouse and skirt. The fragmented image challenges ideas of beauty, race, and the body and encourages viewers to reconsider the often-reductive ways they see Black youth characterized and represented. Roberts’s work insists upon the complexities of childhood, moving away from stereotypes and societal expectations and toward more expansive understandings of identity.