Meet Darrell Roberts of Darrell Roberts Studio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Darrell Roberts.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Darrell. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In high school, I fell in love with art. After that, I jumped around in college for the first few years studying a little bit of everything and then finally getting a degree in Art History. After moving to Chicago twenty years ago, I got two degrees in painting from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Over the last decade, I participated in some artists residencies in India, Bangladesh, China, and Spain. I love international travel and exploring new cultures and having off the grid life experiences. For the most part, my studio is centered in Chicago and my painting inspiration comes from here. I also love living in Chicago where I have many neighborhoods to explore, the lake to go to, gardens to work in, and architecture to look at for my painting influences.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I have always worked hard all my life. I have to maintain an income and have time to be in my studio working on my career. I have had many different jobs for survival and live a pretty simplistic and minimalist lifestyle, so I am not financially tattered to a job year-round to only work to exist to own expensive items that take decades to pay off. I have a few high-end things and only buy what I need to exist. My career as an artist always comes first and everything else is a side gig.

Please tell us about Darrell Roberts Studio.
I am a painter. I am interested in the physical act of painting. I am immersed in a lifetime of art history. I respond to, view and react to the mammoth wall size paintings of the 1950’s. By creating thick visceral paintings, I squeeze those paintings down to small-scale paintings which still have the same amount of power to capture the viewer’s attention in the same amount of wall space. Recently, I have started making some larger scale pieces to reflect the viewer’s scale in the presence of the painting, so things do change with time.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I probably would have skipped out on graduate school. The only thing I got out of grad school was learning what I do not want to be or be a part of. As an artist, I developed on my own over the course of time, dedication, trying new forms of painting and painting until I painted all I wanted to paint and now focus on abstraction. Also, I ignored what is in and trendy. I have always stayed true to myself. It might have taken longer to have gotten to where I am as a painter without graduate school but I believe I would have still gotten there. Maybe, not all the same opportunities would have come to me with all my connections, but regardless, I will paint until I die and only care about making my art.

Pricing:

• 12″ x 12″ and 11″ x 14″ $1,500 each
• 12″ x 16″ $1,800 each
• 16″ x 20″ $2,000 each
• 18″ x24″ $2,200 each
• 24″ x 36″ $2,500 each
• 30″ x 40″ $4,000 each
• 42″ x 48″ $5,500 each

Contact Info:

• Address: Darrell Roberts Studio
  1800 W. Cornelia #112
  Chicago, IL 60657
• Website: https://darrell-roberts-studio.business.site/
• Phone: 773-969-6053
• Email: darrellkr@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darrell_roberts_artist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtistAtMcCormickGalleryandDavidRichardGallery/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/darrellkr
• Other: https://vimeo.com/207623863

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