Collaging With...Amber Robles-Gordon

In conjunction with Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, Amber Robles-Gordon will be leading a collage workshop at the Phillips on September 1. Here, Amber shares her creative inspirations.

Amber Robles-Gordon (active in Washington, DC) is an interdisciplinary visual artist of Puerto Rican and Caribbean origin. Through visual depictions of her hybrid identity, she combines her gender, ethnicity, and cultural experiences and issues. Her artworks aim to expose racial injustice and the contradictions inherent in society. Motivated by the need to carve her own unique path, Robles-Gordon innovates and questions societal standards, resulting in her unconventional and non-formulaic art.

Can you share some of your artistic process?
As a visual artist, I see my role in society as being multifaceted, similar to the path of a teacher, journalist, or writer. A good portion of the narratives I work with stem from things I deem concerning within our society and/or issues that I am working through in my own life. I usually then take that concern or personal issue and begin to research and investigate if and how this issue affects others. Ultimately, I present my findings, concerns, and explorations as a body or artwork, a physical environment in the form of a site-specific art installation or a public art sculpture. Usually my site-specific installations, depending on the overall subject matter, will also include a call to action or an activation ceremony.

What are you teaching/leading during your workshop?
The intent of the workshop is to assist participants with connecting with their inner narrator and narrative. I will lead activities to help distill these roles, and then align them with their senses, memory recall, external resources, and visual expressions. Participants are welcome to bring a picture, fabric, and memorabilia to include in their collage. 

What are some of your general practice techniques or beliefs that you incorporate into your lessons?
We all are born with the ability to create. Through building and committing to an art or creative practice, ability can be cultivated into purposeful creations of any kind. 

As Nina Simone stated: “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. I think that is true of painters, sculptors, poets, musicians. As far as I’m concerned, it’s their choice, but I CHOOSE to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself. That, to me, is my duty. And at this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when everyday is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved. Young people, black and white, know this. That’s why they’re so involved in politics. We will shape and mold this country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore. So I don’t think you have a choice. How can you be an artist and NOT reflect the times? That to me is the definition of an artist.”