“Fragile but Fixable,” Deborah Roberts’s Los Angeles solo debut, is on view at Luis De Jesus through June 16. In her collages, Roberts takes found images of black women and girls and alters them with pigment and paint, manipulating the optics of advertisement to create new fictions of beauty. “My art practice,” she writes, in her artist statement, “takes on social commentary, critiquing perceptions of ideal beauty. Stereotypes and myths are challenged in my work; I create a dialogue between the ideas of inclusion, dignity, consumption, and subjectivity by addressing beauty in the form of the ideal woman.”

Deborah Roberts, Filling in the gaps, 2018, collage on paper. All images courtesy the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

Girl in Charge, 2018, collage on paper.

Golden Smile, 2018, collage, gold pigment, and paint on paper.

Here before, here after, 2018, collage and paint on paper.

Human nature, 2018, collage, gold pigment, and paint on paper.

Political Lamb #3, 2018, collage on paper.

Small waves, 2018, collage on paper.

The Double Dare, 2018, collage on paper.

The Redress, 2018, collage and gold pigment on paper.

The step back, 2018, collage on paper.