Roberta Stoddart is an artist whose paintings have been described as brave, dense, bold, thoroughly executed, and deeply felt. They are not pleasant, pretty paintings. Intense and disturbing, they stimulate questions about our collective prejudices, our psychological spaces, and our notions of belonging. Stoddart has published two books, Seamless Spaces (2000) and The Storyteller (2007). She has produced seven solo exhibitions, and has participated in important local, regional, and international group shows. She is the recipient of a Peoples’ Choice prize in France and has exhibited at the Werner Gallery, Berlin, Germany. Her paintings are published in numerous magazines, art catalogues and journals. Born in Jamaica, she lives and works in Trinidad.
I paint what I love and fear. My technical practice and subject matter are inseparably intertwined, grounding and liberating the other in turns. Honoring the tradition of painting, I push the boundaries of what I know, experimenting with subject matter and technique.
I find enthusiasm and peace in the search for meaning. Ongoing inspirations for my work are death and fear, rejection and isolation, unrequited love and loss, disillusionment and grief. I find the world a sad place, even with all of its blessings. The Tear Catcher collects my tears.
The mystery of faith – trusting goodness – is life to the heart. I paint with dark colors to signify the active existence of soul residing beneath my awareness. In the Dark Night, I find that love is my heart’s deepest desire.
Our Stone Age ancestors forged the first black pigments from fire, purifying charcoal from bone. Black endures – soulful, fecund, mystical, ritualistic, symbolic – resurgent and eternal. Black has secret splendor, depth and possibility, traversing between worlds, conjuring up infinity.
– Roberta Stoddart
