Michelle Roberts
Michelle Robert’s paintings are ambitious in scale, conception and realisation. The subjects relate to lived experience such as a holiday, a visit to the ‘Dinosaur World’ exhibition or an Air Show, while others celebrate events such as the Diamond Jubilee, Remembrance Day or films that she’s seen. Photographs are used for reference, but only in passing, as clues or prompts rather than images to be slavishly copied. The drawing is carefully detailed, finely subdividing shapes and forms into patterns and displays fine control without hesitation or correction. The composition is coloured using paint, brush-pens or a combination of these. Colour is used freely with only rare adherence to the local colour of the subject.
She is highly methodical in her execution demonstrating strong self-discipline and consistency over extended periods, usually ten to fourteen weeks to complete a work.
Buy work by Michelle Roberts at Untitled Gallery.
Exhibitions & Residencies
If a picture’s worth a thousand words…, Hastings Arts Forum. 2010
Heroes, Dreams and Visions, Hastings Arts Forum. 2011
Day Trip to Chichester, Pallant House, Chichester. 2014
Littoral Drift, Coastal Currents, Hastings 2015
In the Realm of Others, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill On Sea. 2015
10 Years of Outside In, Pallant House, Chichester. 2016
Journeys, Outside In exhibition, Sotheby’s, London. 2018
Premier Inn Collection, Premier Inn Newhaven, 2018 – 2020
Putting ourselves in the Picture, Fabrica Gallery, Brighton, 2019
Ignition, Hastings Contemporary, March – May 2021
Turner Prize 2021 Exhibition, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, September – January 2022
Shift Gallery, 2021 – An online platform giving recognition to and amplify the voices and works of learning disabled and neurodivergent artists and makers across the UK.
Ignition, the exhibition, Hastings Contemporary, October 2021 – March 2022
documenta fifteen, Germany, June – September 2022
Coastal Currents, Project Art Works studio, Hastings, 2022
Humanity, Outside In exhibition at Sothebys, January 2023
Residential, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, 23 September 2023 – 25 February 2024
Residential, Copenhagen Contemporary, 27 April – 31 December 2024
Kaleidoscopic Realms, Nottingham Castle, 8th June – 3 November 2024
Michelle Roberts Red Blue Up, Outside In with De La Warr Pavilion, 22 February – 26 May 2025
