Malik Roberts’s upcoming solo exhibition, To Suffer a Lick, presents a collection of thought-provoking works that invite viewers to explore their own sense of liminality and uncertainty. The exhibition features a range of compositions that are both dynamic and abstract, with each piece showcasing the artist’s unique approach to deconstructing and fragmenting figures.
Roberts’s inspiration for this exhibition came from the pandemic, which created a sense of liminality in its own right, leading to a mental battle of waiting for the outcome. He spent a lot of time at home, which is reflected in the works, with subjects depicted in homelike spaces. Through his use of line work, Roberts accentuates the emotions and perspectives he wants viewers to feel, creating an amalgamation of people, scenes, emotions, and his own thoughts and feelings to create each subject.
The title of the exhibition, To Suffer a Lick, reflects the feeling of waiting for an opportunity while enduring uncertainty, encapsulating the sense of grace that comes with success. Roberts’s use of oil, oil pastel, and charcoal on canvas showcases his influences from Caravaggio, Francis Bacon, and Picasso, with a darker color palette highlighting a Caravaggio baroque style with a single light source. “The concept behind the show was based on liminality and uncertainty within myself and the works I was creating. A lot of the ideas for works were conceptualized through the pandemic, which was a time of liminality in itself. It was a bit of a mental battle, waiting for the outcome. A lot of time was spent at home, you’ll see a lot of my subjects reflect that being depicted in homelike spaces, because that’s what life was like then,” said Roberts.
The exhibition’s centerpiece, ‘Chamber of Reflections,’ is the first piece Roberts painted and shown to the world via promotion. It sets the tone for the exhibition, showcasing emotional and spatial liminality, with a bed serving as a familiar object. Roberts uses his line details to create separation between the parts of the subject that are fading away in contrast to the parts that are still together. Moreover, ‘A Feeling of Falling’ explores the theme of hubris and uncertainty, with the subject falling into a void between light and darkness, highlighting aspects of the subject being in-between the light and the void of uncertainty. The accents on the edges were done with charcoal to accentuate the subject falling, with the painting viewed as a scene in which the subject is falling through.
Meanwhile, another work titled ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ captures the theme of turning a blind eye to problems, with a young woman sitting in front of a computer or camera, ignoring the world’s chaos behind her. The work highlights the notion that “a person who does not know about a problem does not worry about it,” with the young woman’s focus on technology serving as a symbol of how society is often more focused on its devices than the world around it as the artist described.
In regards to his process, Roberts expressed: “I wouldn’t describe my style as a collage, but more of a deconstruction or fragmentation of figures and subjects. I see a collage to be more of putting things together, and I more so take things apart to show a bit more of the inner workings of my subjects mind and feeling. The line work is used to accentuate some of the emotion and perspective I want felt by those viewing the painting. That’s why I use an amalgamation of people, scenes, emotions, my own thoughts and feelings to create a subject. It’s more about the different parts of a person’s psyche, what they may be going through or feeling. With my line detail I tend to highlight the more expressive part of the subject and showcase another layer to a persons’ personality.”
Overall, ‘To Suffer a Lick’ is a powerful exhibition that encourages viewers to explore their own sense of liminality and uncertainty, with each work showcasing Roberts’s unique signature style and approach to deconstructing and fragmenting figures.
