ransome in conversation with Deborah Roberts

June 1st from 4-5p

Geary is pleased to present a conversation between Rhinebeck, NY based artist, ransome, and Texas based artist Deborah Roberts from 4-5 PM, June 1st, 2024 in conjunction with ransome’s solo exhibition: The Bitter and the Sweet.

In his first exhibit at Geary, ransome uses patterns, shapes, colors, marks and other elements to focus on African American communities who migrated from the South to Northern cities from 1915 to the 1970’s during the Great Migration. ransome focuses on his own family’s migration of maternal aunts and uncles, nine of whom settled in the urban centers of Baltimore, Brooklyn, Newark and Paterson, NJ. ransome’s abstract works utilize narratives that are personal, yet contain symbols that interplay with larger social, racial, ancestral, economic and political histories that speak to current issues. Each piece in The Bitter and the Sweet is imbued with lyrical yet authentic reverberations of resilience, limited resources, and frugality; exploring the struggle and hope, pain, joy, and soul of folks in the Black community.

ransome received his MFA from Lesley University. In his practice he combines acrylic paint with an array of found, created, and purchased papers. He had a solo exhibit at Alpha Galley, Opalka Gallery, CAM Raleigh and The Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina and group shows at Katonah Museum of Art, The Sigal Museum, The SECCA Museum, MASS MoCA, Weatherspoon Museum of Art, the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

Deborah Roberts (American, b. 1962) is a mixed media artist whose work challenges the notion of ideal beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the USA and Europe. Roberts’ work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles, California; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, among several other institutions. She was selected to participate in the Robert Rauschenberg Residency (2019) and was a finalist for the 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, as well as the recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant (2018), and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016). Texas Metal of Arts Award (2023) Roberts received her MFA from Syracuse University, New York. She lives and works in Austin, Texas. Roberts is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, CA.