15 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York This Summer

Excerpt from a Hyperallergic article written by Taliesin Thomas

Deborah Roberts: Consequences of being

Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York
Through September 27

A graduate of Syracuse University, Deborah Roberts makes a triumphant return to the city with her solo exhibition Consequences of being at the Everson Museum of Art. It features recent works on paper, her first ceramic sculpture, and mixed-media paintings — hybrid portraits that reflect both the sensitivity and fierceness of her characters. In “I come as one but stand as ten-thousand”(2025), a young woman in a patterned dress earnestly holds our gaze with hands folded gracefully, while “Pig Feet” (2025) features two boys wearing t-shirts — the word “American” turned upside down on one of them — glancing askance at us. With a focus on identity as fragmented, reconfigured, and thus transformed, Roberts brings our attention to the body as our primary mode of understanding.

Deborah Roberts
I come as one but stand as ten-thousand, 2025
Mixed media collage, acrylic, ink, graphite, and pastel on canvas, 72 x 48 inches
Courtesy of the artist