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This has been a remarkable year for Black Rock Senegal which opened its doors in May 2019, sharing Kehinde Wiley’s magnificent vision with friends from near and far. In August 2019, Black Rock launched the inaugural year of the artist residency, welcoming the first three artists to live and make work on the compound. As of today, Black Rock has hosted 15 artists working in literature, multimedia, painting, photography, sculpture and textiles.

By Carolina Miranda for LA Times

I’m starting with a throwback: a rendering by Betye Saar for a mural that occupied a wall on Fifth Street in downtown L.A. from 1983 to 1987. Located near the old headquarters of SoCal Edison at the base of Bunker Hill, the work, titled “L.A. Energy,” is now a point of inspiration for an online exhibition of Saar’s works on galleryplatform.la. Organized by Roberts Projects, the show explores notions of spiritual power.

By Harley Wong for Artsy

Amoako Boafo has experienced a meteoric rise in the art world over the past year. Known for large-scale portraits of Black subjects rendered in bold, gestural strokes, Boafo has only gained momentum in 2020. Recently, in April 2020, he donated a painting, Aurore Iradukunda (2020), to an online benefit auction supporting the Museum of the African Diaspora during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roberts Projects is pleased to announce representation of Wangari Mathenge, a historically-focused painter who reinterprets traditional African patriarchal society alongside her own. Juxtaposing modern and contemporary references, Mathenge's work is dedicated to the investigation and incorporation of a visual testimony of the oft-discounted black female experience within the context of both customary African society and the Diaspora. Shifting the dialogue around painting and identity, the artist's portraits highlight these silent exchanges and hierarchical dynamics. Often depicting people with whom she has significant relationships, her paintings are realized through structured compositions emboldened with gestural strokes and mark making.