The Exhibition

A fractured visual language shaped by identity, image and contemporary culture.

Roberts’ work draws on both art history and popular culture, combining these references through a distinctive visual language of fragmented faces, figures and surfaces.

Across the exhibition, saturated reds and blues emerged against dark grounds, creating compositions that shift between beauty, disruption and psychological tension.

The works considered race, identity, media culture and systemic inequality, using fractured imagery to reflect emotional, physical and social dissonance.

Visual Language

Painting through fragmentation.

Roberts is known for a prismatic approach to portraiture in which faces and bodies appear broken apart and reconstructed across the canvas.

Rather than presenting a single fixed image, his paintings create a sense of instability and movement. Layers of colour, fractured planes and shifting forms invite the viewer to look beyond surface appearance and consider the tension between personal identity and the images through which society interprets it.

His use of red and blue carries particular visual force throughout the work, creating an atmosphere that can suggest urgency, confrontation and emotional intensity.

About the Artist

From Brooklyn to an international audience.

Based in Brooklyn, Malik Roberts developed his practice within New York before exhibiting more widely across the United States.

His work has been shown in cities including New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., while his wider practice has included public murals and collaborations with brands including Nike, Adidas and Bombay Sapphire.

Roberts’ work has also attracted attention from prominent collectors and cultural figures, while his growing international profile has extended his practice beyond the United States.

Exhibition Highlights

Curatorial Context

Bringing a New York practice into a new context.

Roberts’ first solo presentation in the UK offered audiences an opportunity to encounter a body of work shaped by the visual and cultural landscape of contemporary America within a new international setting.

The exhibition reflected D’Stassi Art’s ongoing commitment to presenting artists whose work combines a distinctive visual language with broader cultural and social narratives.

Through a focused body of newly produced work, the exhibition introduced Roberts’ practice to London while building a bridge between his established presence in the United States and a growing international audience.

Exhibition Details