Linda Foard Roberts
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BIO
Linda Foard Roberts' (b. American, 1961) work is deeply personal, rooted in memory, family, and local histories, combined with philosophical inquiries about life, death, and basic human rights. Over the years, her projects have been mined from her personal connection to nature, humanity, and family. Using 8" x 10" and 5" x 7" cameras and preferring the imperfections of old lenses and the untold history within them, her work is metaphorical and layered, intending to cross language and cultural barriers. Roberts is a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2009 North Carolina Artist Fellowship.
In 2016, Roberts completed her first monograph, Passage, published by Radius Books, debuting at Paris Photo with signings at AIPAD in New York and Hauser and Wirth. This five-chapter book weaves together images and writing that explore the inevitable movement of time in life, which connects us all as human beings. Accompanying the images are essays by Deborah Willis, Ph.D., Chair Tisch School of the Arts, and Russell Lord, Curator of Photographs at The New Orleans Museum of Art, and paired quotes consented by Sally Mann and Emmet Gowin, and a poem by Billy Collins. Inspired by Wabi-sabi, the Japanese word for finding beauty in imperfection, her work focuses on memory and the acceptance of our impermanence.
In 2025, Roberts’ series, LAMENT, a song of sorrow for those not heard, will be published by Radius Books. Her photographs will be accompanied by essays by Jennifer Sudul Edwards, Ph.D., Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art, The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; Cheryl Finley, Ph.D., historian, author, curator, and critic; Michelle Lanier, professor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; and a Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Ph.D., professor, literary critic, historian, and filmmaker; and a poem written for the series by Eugene Ethelbert Miller, poet, teacher, literary activist.
Through contemporary photographs, historical essays, personal stories, and critical quotes, LAMENT, a song of sorrow for those not heard, will connect the tangibility of history and the geography of memory to help us better understand the palpable presence of our shared past in everyday life. This open discussion and dialogue about our country's deepest scars will allow for cultural reform, healing, and new possibilities.
Roberts’ work contemplates the roots we forge, connecting us with the smallness and the significance of an individual's human life. Posing the environment as a reflection of ourselves, her photographs engage the transformative cycles that shape our lives, bound by time and what it means to be human, a foundation upon which we can all find common ground.
Collections include permanent collections of The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC, The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA, The Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, the Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX, The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, San Diego, CA, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, and The Ogden Museum of Art. New Orleans, LA. Corporate Collections include Bank of America, Fidelity Bank, King and Spalding, Lending Tree, Lincoln Harris, The Ritz Carleton, and the Symrise Group, formerly Haarmann and Reimer.
Roberts is represented by SOCO Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Sol del RIO in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Roberts lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina.
