review
ORIGINAL PHOTO BY AMBER ROBLES-GORDON
Womanhood and femininity finds itself in every corner of life. Church pews, miniature gardens and passed-down accessories— artists Lavett Ballard, Amber Robles-Gordon and Evita Tezeno bring Black womanhood and female friendships to the canvas through their exhibition, “Solace and Sisterhood,” at the University of Maryland’s David C. Driskell Center.
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D.C.-based artist Amber Robles–Gordon has created assemblages that cover swaths of the walls and floor, forming symmetrical arrangements of original paintings and objects along with bric-a-brac that could have been pulled right out of granny’s house. Among these talismans are coasters, sticks wrapped with rainbow thread, embroidery samplers, vividly painted wood planks, and live plants in glass cubes of water.
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Through their pieces, the artists reflect on shared experiences, understanding and a supportive bond that fosters resilience. They examine a sense of sisterhood within the Black community, which transcends individual stories and shared experiences, creating a space for solace.
Jamiyah Bonds, a sophomore government and politics major, said she always enjoys seeing other people’s world experiences through art.
Read MoreSolace and Sisterhood, The Driskell Center’s fall semester exhibit, amplifies the resilience and bond of Black sisterhood through the varying perspectives of three prominent female artists.
The exhibit, which is on view until Dec. 5, aims to encompass a diverse range of relationships between women, from biological relationships to friendships. It showcases the impact sisterhood has on these relationships and examines the solace and understanding Black women in these relationships receive, according to a press release by The Driskell Center.
Read More"These amazing and accomplished thinkers will be engaging in a discussion about the impressive visual presentation and critical investigations present Amber’s current exhibition on view at our gallery: soveREIGNty: Acts, Forms, & Measures of Protest & Resistance."
Read MoreTinney Contemporary will be sticking with its June show through July 9. I reviewed Amber Robles-Gordon’s Sovereignty exhibition for the Scene — it’s a prime example of how artists can incorporate political and social content into a body of work while also making art that’s formally striking. We’ve seen lots of messaging about social and political issues in the contemporary art of the 21st century. However, much of that work will never be remembered or reconsidered — timely art is rarely timeless. Robles-Gordon’s work is visually successful irrespective of its critiques of the U.S. policy toward — and governance of — its populated territories and the District of Columbia. I’ve seen powerful political art and dim political art, and I often question whether visual art is an effective medium for political messages. But the work in Sovereignty is formally distinctive. Tinney Contemporary will be open this Saturday from 2 to 8 p.m.
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Even the title of Amber Robles-Gordon’s Tinney Contemporary exhibition — SoveREIGNty: Acts, Forms, and Measures of Protest and Resistance — expresses an activist message. And it’s emblematic of a display of large-scale, mixed-media quilts brimming with signals and symbolism interrogating U.S. policy toward — and governance of — its populated territories and the District of Columbia.
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“y mi bandera vuela mas alto que la tuya,” 2020. Mixed media collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.
By Andrea KirshDecember 17, 2021
An artist’s visit to her mother’s birth place in Puerto Rico awakens her to the complexities of immigration and family – and to the dubious socio-political actions and inactions, by the U.S. government in its far-flung territories. Our reviewer Andrea Kirsh is moved by the powerful collage works and double-sided quilts of Amber Robles-Gordon. The show closed Dec. 12.
Amber Robles-Gordon‘s first grade classmates in Arlington, VA bullied her for speaking Spanish, so she learned to speak to her mother in English. It wouldn’t be until middle age that the artist finally visited her mother’s birthplace in Puerto Rico. Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism, her solo exhibition at the the American University Museum at the Katzen Center (August 28 – Dec. 12, 2021) in Washington, D.C. was the product of that initial trip and a her return for a six-week residence on the island in 2020.
The exhibition presented two bodies of work. The first, “Place of Breath and Birth” is a series of ten vibrant collages on canvas, all 18 x 24 inches; two, represented by full-scale pigment prints. The collages are constructed from masses of tiny images cut from paper; even the bands of color that form their backgrounds are assembled from minute, colored fragments. And there is a very personal rhythm – like distinctive brushwork – in the way Robles-Gordon arranges the fragments.
Another personal language of Robles-Gordon’s appearing in the fragments is inspired by multiple, non-Western cultural traditions and imagery taken from magazines and photographs. These fragments are used as structuring and framing elements, incorporating the artist’s drawings of detailed and decorative, spiky, geometric patterns. An occasional small trinket or charm adds surface texture, as does the profusion of tiny, sparkly beads which outline the central, circular forms on each collage. The beads and high-keyed colors capture the intense sunlight of the Caribbean and lend a festival-like quality to the series.
Robles-Gordon culls her imagery from photographs she took in Puerto Rico or found elsewhere that evoke its lush, intensely-polychromed environment – both natural and human. While on the island, she was fascinated by the rubber trees and palms, the coconuts and mangos, street murals and public art. The titles of individual collages suggest the range of topics that were prompted by her visits: “Observation of Influencers: Taino culture and heritage, the climate and machismo,” “For bioluminescent bays and turtles.”
Her long-time interest in spirituality and syncretic, New World religious practices inspire aspects of the collages’ format, which the artist likens to personal altars. The imagery of fruit and floral offerings, flickering candles and the crystalline forms of her drawing run throughout the series and reinforce their spiritual associations. She includes photos of herself – both earlier and contemporary images – in several collages, and there is no question that the series itself is a diary of self-discovery.
“Reflexiones sobre el yo, la virgen maría y el colonialismo,” 2020. Mixed media, collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.
If the collages capture Robles-Gordon’s connection to her ancestral culture in the form of personal, spiritual reflection, the second part of the exhibition responded to her developing political understanding of Puerto Rico’s position as a U.S. Territory. The works are a public forum in which to teach, to encourage discussion, to heal, and to begin building a congregation of territorial residents. Six, large, double sided, appliqued quilts hung throughout the high-ceilinged gallery. The installation, which gave its name to the exhibition, was titled “Successions; Traversing U.S. Colonialism.” The quilts include dense references to histories that have yet to be acknowledged and the dark underside of U.S. power. Their format entangles the conventionalized emblems of history and patriotism with the domestic craft of quilting, the masculine pursuit of territory and power with a feminine tradition of healing.
On one side of each quilt Robles-Gordon addresses political history, with references to each of the U.S. Territory’s flag or seal, as well as to the exploitation of its indigenous people for medical experimentation, military support and economic interests; on the other side she constructs an altar dedicated to healing the damage of historical exploitation and the racism which underpins it. Both sides bear central medallions; they are greatly enlarged versions of the circles in the collages, and make references to the circle as a foundational religious image and form of celebration – to healing circles and ceremonial dancing. The healing altars are constructed with the same spiky, geometric patterning that Robles-Gordon used in the collages, and all have hieratic, symmetrical designs. Here they suggest abstracted figures of deities, and their patterning makes reference to a variety of Afro-diasporic and non-Western decorative histories seen in painting, textiles and ceramics. Although painted, they appear to be drawings in chalk on black backgrounds, which suggests religious images in various cultures which are intended to be temporary.
The timing of Robles-Gordon’s residency in Puerto Rico reinforced her understanding of the disparity between U.S. government support to the island after the overwhelming damage from Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, and the level of disaster relief Americans have come to expect on the mainland. This understanding, in turn, led to her interest in the U.S. Territories as a group; areas under United States dominion with the highest percentage of poverty, where the government has exploited resources and sited strategic military bases, with little concern for the inhabitants – all people of color, who are largely, only nominally U.S. Citizens. The territories function, rather, as U.S. colonies.
Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands are unfamiliar to many on the mainland United States. Few Americans know that their residents are U.S. Citizens with the right to vote – although they lack full representation in Congress. Robles-Gordon included Washington, D.C., her current home, among the territories because it’s residents, too, fall under U.S. jurisdiction but have no fully-empowered Congressional representative.
Robles-Gordon used her childhood bullying as a spur to understanding her own cultural traditions, and it is characteristic of her long-developed career of teaching and producing art that she didn’t respond to the history of territorial exploitation with rage, but with honesty, offering understanding, teaching and healing as a foundation on which to advocate for social justice in the outlying regions of the United States and in powerless communities internationally. The sense of spirituality and turning towards a better future pervades her work as much as her personally-developed language of forms and patterns, use of repurposed materials, passionate polychrome, and fusion of visual traditions.
Amber Robles-Gordon, “Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” is now closed. It was on view at the American University Museum at the Katzen Center in Washington, D.C., August 28–December 12, 2021.
“The eternal altar for the women forsaken and souls relinquished. Yet the choice must always remain hers/ El altar eterno de las mujeres abandonadas y las almas renunciadas. Sin embargo, la elección siempre debe ser de ella.,” 2020. Mixed media collage on canvas, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Washington, DC — Seven “flags” hang in Amber Robles-Gordon’s show at the American University Museum: one for each of the five unincorporated United States territories in the Caribbean, one for the District of Columbia, and one to signify the artist’s place in between those locales.
Read MorePeople, food, and horticulture are among the things that move. Amber Robles-Gordon’s use of the Ficus Elastica is part of the symbology that reverberates throughout her exhibition, Successions: Traversing US Colonialism, on view at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC, through December 12, 2021. The Ficus Elastica—colloquially known as the rubber tree—has its roots in South Asia, though it was later nativized in the West Indies through the rubber trade. Dear reader, among your houseplants you are likely to find the genus of the rubber plant.
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“USVI Spiritual, Moko Jumbie: Walk Tall and Heal Forward” Mixed Media on quilt, (back of “USVI Political”) 2021 (Courtesy of Amber Robles-Gordon)
Amber Robles-Gordon’s “Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” has a dual purpose. It consists of her “Place of Birth and Breath” solo exhibit viewed first in her native Puerto Rico in 2020, and it has evolved into a component exhibit, which is an exploration of the historical underpinnings of U.S. Colonialism.
Robles-Gordon is a mixed media visual artist whose solo exhibit at the American University Museum opened in August and can be viewed Fridays through Sundays, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. until Dec. 12.
What began as a quest, “to heal my five-year-old self: to empower her to fight for herself, her language and her culture,” the exhibition took on “the intersections of language, culture, institutional racism, anti-blackness and their immeasurable impact within the U.S. territories,” said Robles-Gordon.
A native-born Puerto Rican with family from St. Thomas, St. John, Puerto Rico, Tortola and Antigua, Robles-Gordon created a visual discussion of the historical and political plight and resilience of the District of Columbia, where she resides, and the five U.S. territories that her two-sided quilts represent. They embody the artist’s creation of a political study of the territories and on the reverse side, a spiritual and cultural study.
Robles-Gordon’s early love of art and creativity moved her delight with fabrics, quilts and found objects to the discovery that these could and would be her artistic narrative.
A writer uses words to express; my medium of expression is my art, she said. “I use a myriad of materials according to what I’m trying to convey in a particular project or a particular narrative. It’s very essential that I match up with what I’m trying to convey,” Robles-Gorden said.
The decision to dismiss her native language, Spanish, came as a result of the teasing and ridicule Robles-Gordon experienced as a five-year-old kindergartener at her school in Arlington, Virginia, far away from her birthplace of Puerto Rico. She did not look like a Latina girl that was familiar to her classmates, and hence developed the bullying of this little brown-skinned girl.
In time, Robles-Gordon realized the importance of embracing her language and her culture and the need to find ways to heal through her research and employ it through her art as the medium on her journey to healing.
Speaking of her years as an artist, Robles-Gordon’s journey toward healing is what she brings creatively in her discoveries about U.S. Colonialism, “I think that it’s a beginning. There’s not an end to my journey. It’s a part of my journey. I think I’ve done a hell of a job in starting it. I actually feel proud about it in my own life. That feels good,” she said.
Robles-Gordon made the universe know how important this part of her journey is. “I think I’ve done that,” she said.
“Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism” exhibits the component of Robles-Gordon’s body of work containing six quilts embodying the Commonwealth of the District of Columbia, and the five U.S. territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The other component, “Place of Birth and Breath,” is the collage on canvas series created in 2020 and exhibited at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazon, (University of the Sacred Heart) in Puerto Rico.
“Place of Birth and Breath” is Robles-Gordon’s 10 mixed-media collage canvases that are a result of the visit with her mother to Puerto Rico where both women recaptured their roots, one of her childhood home, and the other of her birthplace.
“Isla del Encanto” collage, 18×24, 2020. (Courtesy of Amber Robles-Gordon)
A foundational symbology of the “Birth and Breath” body of work is the rubber tree that grows on the campus of the University of the Sacred Heart, which Robles-Gordon was introduced to while in Puerto Rico. “This tree appeared to be a literal fusion of past, present and future states of creation or sustaining an ecosystem. Throughout the series, are abstracted representations of the rubber tree – an entanglement of strong roots – as an example of its resiliency this tree most recently stood-fast to its native soil while 155 mph winds battered the campus,” Robles-Gordon noted.
Robles-Gordon shares her intricate ideas of how she layered her work depicting and interpreting the transitions of day to night and night to day. She relates to three major ethnic/racial groups – the Taino, the Spaniards and Africans, the stranglehold of the United States and the impact of the Caribbean Sea with its threat of hurricanes, scorching summer heat and lush landscapes.
Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism at American University exhibition closes on Dec. 12. The journey continues. The conversation continues. The healing continues.
See Amber Robles-Gordon’s website here..
Residents of D.C. are used to seeing the place as an almost-state, much like Maryland or Wyoming, yet not quite. Amber Robles-Gordon, a longtime Washingtonian who was born in Puerto Rico, has a different take. Her American University Museum show, “Successions: Traversing U.S. Colonialism,” groups D.C. with her birthplace and four other inhabited territories: Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. She represents these disenfranchised territories on two-sided quilted banners, one face for “political” and the other for “spiritual.”
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In DC, neighborhoods are facing an unprecedented amount of change in appearance, racial makeup, and social policies that runs counter to the once-prevalent idea of DC being “Chocolate City.” However, there are ways to balance change with paying respects to DC’s living history. The Nicholson Project, an artist residency that recently opened in Ward 7, hopes to demonstrate this change effectively with the inaugural resident artist Amber Robles-Gordon, who lives only eight minutes from the building. For me, it feels like a house turned into a relic, with its period-accurate rehab details; however, the Nicholson Project owners do not focus on the actual former owners, but highlight contemporary artists of color instead.
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The mission of the DC Department of Government Services (DGS), according to the agency’s website, is “to build, maintain and sustain the District of Columbia’s real estate portfolio, which includes more than 191 million square feet of state-of-the-art facilities in Washington, DC.” The website says further, “This work allows the agency to foster economic viability, environmental stewardship and equity across all eight wards.”
DC residents may not know that the agency spends approximately one percent of its building budget on public art. Murals, sculptures and other public art seen at DC-owned properties such as libraries, schools and parks derive funding from this source.
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"Interdimensional Realms" by Amber Robles-Gordon
"MORE or LESS" showcases how D.C.'s affinity for Abstraction has always been a part of its artistic DNA.
by KRISTON CAPPS, Washington City Paper
MAY 24, 2018 11 AM
Process-based abstraction has always been a staple of painting in D.C. The Washington Color School was built by artists who defined their work by their approach to the canvas, whether by staining it or draping it or something else. MORE or LESS, a group show on view at Hemphill Fine Arts, shows how new trends in contemporary painting continue to line up with the work that put D.C. on the map in the 1960s and ’70s.
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Synchronous Dialogue, Bloom and Orbits, Installation, Mixed-Media, 2018
By Lyric Prince, www.sugarcanemagazine.com
Morton Fine Art, a gallery that is off to the side of the U Street Corridor in Washington D.C., fills in a niche for vibrant artists of color that are pushing boundaries and expectations on art and its potential. Mixed-media installation artist Amber Robles-Gordon's solo exhibition Third Eye Open, which closes on May 20th, was comprised of 8 assemblages produced in 2018, and presented the meeting between the physical world and the intuition of human experience. The chosen forms of the show – circles and ovum – alluded to the ongoing cycle of inserting and patterning elements for self-discovery, incubation, and introspection. Throughout, Robles-Gordon explored abstract art's potential for demonstrating spiritual growth and emotional connection on a metaphorically cosmic scale – where the rules of time and gravity fall to the wayside.
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Kepler 19 c Super Earth and Orbit, Installation, Mixed-Media, 2018
by Renee Royale, www.supportblackart.com
Her work is multilayered; upon first glance there is an overall image presented of cellular circles that contain significant amounts of patterned dark matter, or space, and then heavily layered nuclei that are brightly colored with strategically placed materials giving balance to the form. Then, upon closer inspection, one discovers tiny details, be they altering textures or hand drawn ink strokes, all seamlessly weaving their individualities into the cohesiveness of the piece. Her art is steeped in duality and the connection to divine feminine, an examination of what femininity means and how it is viewed in relationship to the masculine. Her spirals are comprised of bits of lace, portion of a blouse, lanyard reminiscent of childhood art endeavors, and other found materials that represent the realm of womanhood. The pieces spiral, reminiscent of kundalini energy, further enhanced by the subtle abstract snakes that are strategically woven into the tapestries.
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Maya Freelon’s “Bubble 2,” on view at Morton Fine Art. (Maya Freelon/Morton Fine Art)
by Mark Jenkins, Washington Post
Fabric scraps and damaged tissue paper are the essential ingredients of new work now at Morton Fine Art. Those materials might sound negligible, but Amber Robles-Gordon and Maya Freelon employ them with ambition and impact.
Robles-Gordon, a D.C. native, is known for hanging strands of textiles and other found objects in intricate arrangements. The pieces in her “Third Eye Open” are wall-mounted rather than suspended, and feature circular drawing-collages orbited by smaller rounded objects, some partly covered in bits of garments. The forms suggest zygotes and planets, as well as eyes, but at the heart of each of the larger circles is a leafy motif. Whether seen as cosmic or botanical, the artist’s circling compositions exalt natural cycles.
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by Kimberli Gant, PhD, McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art
“…an Earth alive in my consciousness as a living crystal being whose etheric geometric skeleton could be mapped in its patterns of energy flows…in ocean currents, the winds, river systems, and distributions of precious minerals. It seemed to me that ancient humans had known this sacred, hidden body of Earth and had settled on it in ways that took advantage of very visceral powers of place.” - Bethe Hagens
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A woman views a painting by Mary Early.
At face value, there’s an able group show at the Washington Project for the Arts, filled with work that ranges from the aesthetically pleasing, to the conceptual, and the socially relevant. A 55-color lithograph, “Ramble,” by Benjamin Edwards, is a dizzying map exploding with color and shape. Margaret Boozer’s “Red Dirt Print,” a four-foot square patch of dirt, re-contextualizes the ground beneath our feet into an aesthetic object to hang on the wall. Naoko Wowsugi’s “Thank You For Teaching Me English” presents several photographed portraits against high-key color backgrounds: people mouthing English words for the artist to learn (English is her second language).
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