Bio
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Katya Roberts grew up in California and studied Sociology and Art at UCLA. In 2002 she received the UCLA Women in Art Award. After working at Fox Studios, she taught and developed the visual arts curriculum at Pacifica, a college preparatory school in Santa Monica, CA. In 2015, Katya exhibited a series of three installations for KCRW’s Chinatown summer nights in Los Angeles, CA. In 2016, she moved to Rochester, Minnesota and founded the Mayo Art Group. In 2017, Katya had a winning sculpture proposal for the public art series Art4Trails. “Unbroken,” is an aluminum sculpture now on permanent installation at Mayo Park. Katya was a recipient of the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council grant for a solo exhibition titled Traverse at the Rochester Art Center on view Oct 2018-Jan 2019. A year later, the artist completed another body of work and exhibited This Side of the Sun Feb 2020- June 2020 in the Turret Gallery at the historic Castle building in downtown Rochester, MN. The artist has recently relocated to New Hampshire. She is highlighted on the cover of an award winning book, “The Motherhood of Art”, which features Katya Roberts’s work and process. Last fall, her work appeared in the national publication, Fiber Art Now, and was selected for the magazine’s 2023 calendar.
Artist Statement
I am drawn to boundaries and where they meet, where dualities converge or diverge. Perhaps this is a result of moving to the U.S. from Ukraine at the age of twelve. Living at the intersection of identity, places, languages and ideas has been a rehearsal for the ways I see the world, now reflected in my art.
As I observe the world around me, a mountain side, looking over the waters, fixing my eyes on the smallness of a pebble and the vastness of a horizon line, almost simultaneously, I am drawn to commonalities within our human experience. One of those is the sense of awe evoked by nature.
My past work has explored our relationship to time, community, history and the natural world. Iceland and other geologically dynamic landscapes become the backdrop against which I explore those concepts. Most recently I have been inspired by the Black Sand Basin in Yellowstone National Park and by walking through the woods of New Hampshire.
Weaving together installation art, painting, sculpture, and video, I create pieces of a whole. These pieces are in relationship and in conversation as they inform each other. I’m drawn to the material, tangible and tactile, yet I try to push the materials I work with into a visceral, nostalgic or meditative state. These can include charcoal on paper, paint on canvas, fabric and dye, mylar and materials found in nature.
My Sociology and Cultural Geography background has given me a framework for my interest in the ways people and spaces influence each other. I am drawn to creating works that are both immersive and visually economical. While I respond to materiality, I aim to create experiences with an otherworldly or ethereal aesthetic quality.
My work is best when it comes into its own life, then I pull myself back and get to become a viewer.