Roberts’ Senior Exhibit Spotlights the Arkansas Bottoms

University of the Ozarks senior art major Keyannah Roberts will present her artwork, "Arkansas Bottoms," as her Senior Art Exhibit April 28 through May 8 in the Stephens Gallery.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 7-8 p.m. on Monday, May 4, in the gallery, located in the Walton Fine Arts Center.

From New Spadra, Ark., Roberts is a life-long Arkansas painter who said her artwork is an "amalgamation of the sorrowful and serene found in the dark country of the Arkansas Bottoms."

"Through the mediums of acrylic, oil, charcoal, and sculptures, I capture the essence of the nature and the people who live there," Roberts added. "In my experience, poverty leads to a stagnation of aesthetics and technology over time. The wood paneling and cigarette-stained backgrounds look outdated, modern designs are not maintained or updated in a struggling life."

Roberts said she was 7 years old the first time she went walking in the Arkansas Bottoms, low-lying flood plains near the Arkansas River.

"Representing the underside, the Bottoms are where poaching, dealing, and deaths happen," she said. "Despite the dangers hanging in every tree, they are frequented often. I, however, did not find any poaching; only a beautiful landscape and abandoned deer bones that I now associate with home."

Roberts said that her art captures the local side of her ancestry.

"My Dominican heritage is as absent from my upbringing," she said. "Be that as it may, I know the local culture well, despite not seeing myself in it. As someone of mixed race, I have the intimate perspective of a local and the isolated objectiveness of an outsider. The portraits serve to simultaneously act as a local, familiar face and as a window to an unfamiliar one. Using a Renaissance-like style, I paint fantastical portraits loosely based on the people I have met while living in Arkansas. From the solemn contempt, to the pleading helplessness, these are based on the human condition expressed on a canvas. A narrative follows the portraits through depicted through the use of symbolism. Flowers and wedding rings are used as symbols weaving the characters together."

Through charcoal and paint, Roberts' canvases "show the harsh yet beautiful reality of the South from the eyes of a poor kid living outside city limits."

"Creating art from something inherently distasteful is visually captivating," she added. "Humans are drawn to both aesthetics and darker aspects of life. Whether the viewer's reaction is revulsion or captivation I want to elicit emotion in others through my art."

Roberts won second place in River Valley Collegiate Art competition earlier this semester.