Amber Robles-Gordon

Bio

Amber Robles-Gordon is an interdisciplinary visual artist with more than fifteen years of experience in exhibiting, art education, and exhibition coordination. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Trinity University in 2005, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Howard University in 2011, where she received multiple awards recognizing her artistic excellence.

Robles-Gordon has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally, including in Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Canada, London, and Spain. Robles-Gordon has traveled across the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Northern Africa, and Southeast Asia. Her artwork and exhibitions have been reviewed and/or featured in The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, Washington Informer, Examiner, Hyperallergic, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Huffington Post, BmoreArt Magazine, Callaloo: Art & Culture in the African Diaspora, Sugarcane Magazine, Culture Type, Bomb Magazine, Nashville Scene, Puerto Rico Art News, Kolaj Magazine, Hunter College Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Art News, WAMU American University Radio, WPFW 89.3, MSNBC the grio, Ebony.com, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Huffington Post, Bmore Art Magazine, Support Black Art, Art Plugged.co.UK, Nashville Scene Newspaper, Art News, Periodico El Adoquin, Periodico La Perla, Indianapolis Recorder and numerous other print and digital publications.

Her public art practice includes both temporary and permanent commissions for prominent institutions such as the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association, Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., Howard University, James A. Porter Colloquium, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Washington Project for the Arts, Salisbury University, Martha’s Table, DC Department of General Services, and Democracy Fund.

She has also been invited to teach, lecture, exhibit and offer commentary by the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, Luther College, WETA Television, Al Jazeera, WPFW 89.3FM, WAMU American University Radio, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, Howard University’s James A. Porter Colloquium, the David C. Driskell Center, the Phillips Collection, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, McDaniel College, Salisbury University, the Harvey B. Gantt Center, American University, Delaware University, Wilmington, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Universidad Sagrado Corazon, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Phillips Collection, Prizm Art Fair and Bowie State University, Butter Art Fair.

A dedicated advocate for the Washington, D.C. arts ecosystem, Robles-Gordon served in multiple leadership roles with Black Artists DC (BADC) between 2004 and 2012, including Exhibitions Coordinator, Vice President, and President. BADC, a 20-year old member organization of individuals of Black-Afrikan ancestry, includes artists, arts administrators, educators, dealers, collectors, museum directors, curators, gallery owners, and arts enthusiasts. She is also the co-founder of the Delusions of Grandeur Artist Collective.

In 2010, she received a public art apprenticeship through the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, D.C. Creates Public Art Program. In 2012, she presented in the Under the Influence competition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art as part of the 30 Americans exhibition. Her artistic development continued through international engagements, including a 2016 teaching residency with the Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano in Limón, Costa Rica; a 2017 teaching residency with Washington Project for the Arts and DC Public Schools; and cultural study in Thailand in 2018. In January 2019, she completed an Artist/Scholar residency at the American Academy in Rome, culminating in an exhibition of new works.

Further, in July 2019, she completed a two-month artist-in-residence and temporary public art commission, titled Fertile Grounds:  Of Minds, Wombs, and of the Earth, at the Nicholson Project, artist residency program.  In fall 2019, Robles-Gordon, was commissioned by DC Department of General Services, for a public artwork at the Ida B. Wells Middle School, DC Public Schools.

In July 2020, Robles-Gordon will be featured in the first online solo exhibition, Place of Breath and Birth, at Galleria de Arte, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, (Sacred Heart University), in her birthplace of San Juan, Puerto Rico, (PR).

In October, 2020 the Place of Breath and Birth Series was presented by Tafeta Gallery in the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair during London Art Week, alongside their new digital initiative 1-54 Online, powered by Christie’s.

In fall 2021, solo exhibition, Successions: Traversing US Colonialism, at American University, Katzen Art Center from August 28 - December 12, 2021. Shortly after the Place of Breath and Birth series was presented by Tafeta during London Art Week. Additionally, the work y mi bandera vuela mas alto que la tuya, (and my flag flies higher than yours) part of the Place of Breath and Birth series was selected by Yinka Shonibare to be apart of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in London, England.

From 2022 onward, Robles-Gordon’s career expanded with significant national and international presence. Her solo exhibitions during this period include Place of Breath and Birth at Derek Eller Gallery (New York) and soveREIGNty: acts, forms and measures of protest and resistance at Tinney Contemporary in Tennessee.

In 2022, during Art Basel Miami, she also presented multiple site-specific installations; With Every Fiber of My Being: Superpower with Tafeta Gallery at Untitled Art Fair. At which Robles-Gordon was featured as Best Booth at Untitled Art in Art News. And the second installation At the Altar: Dance of the Serpants at Prizm Art Fair. Robles-Gordon was also a semifinalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize, further solidifying her growing institutional recognition.

In October 2023, her artwork was featured in Puerto Rico Negrx at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico in October 2023. In January 2024, she presented a solo exhibition featuring her series Successions: Traversing US Colonialism at Indiana State University.

From 2023 to 2025, Robles-Gordon received a Project Development Residency from CulturalDC in support of Reclamando mi tiempo, reclamando lo que es mío, an ongoing bomba-centered project that merges art, documentary practice, and embodied research. The project chronicles her journey of learning to dance and participate within the Puerto Rican bomba cultural community, culminating in a future exhibition and documentary to be presented in both Washington, D.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In October 2025, Robles-Gordon delivered a keynote presentation and mounted a solo exhibition titled Sacred Co-evolution: undoing the enchainment of being(s) as part of the international conference IMPACT13 at the University of Quebec.

Artist Statement

Amber Robles-Gordon is an interdisciplinary visual artist of Puerto Rican and Caribbean descent who resides in Washington, DC. Her creations are visual representations of her hybridism: a fusion of her gender, ethnicity, cultural, political and social experiences and concerns.

The underpinnings of her creations are imbued to reveal racial injustice and the paradoxes within the imbalance of masculine and feminine energies within our society. Known for recontextualizing non-traditional materials, her large scale assemblages, sculptures, collages, installations, and public artwork, in order to emphasize the essentialness of spirituality and temporality within life. 

Robles-Gordon is driven by the need to construct her own distinctive path, innovate, peel back the layers of injustice and challenge social norms, hence her artwork is unconventional and non-formulaic.