Bio
Born in Monterrey, Mexico, Roberta Marroquin is a photographer currently living in New York City. Roberta arrived to New York in the summer of 2008 to pursue a one year certificate program at the International Center of Photography. After she received her degree in June 2009, she continued to work on a project called, “Underneath Light”, which is an inspiration on the indigenous Mexicans beliefs in spirits that still commingles with Christianity. Certainly the beginning of an investigation that she has developed through various series, in which a genuine interest becomes evident in inquiring about how some people, places or objects are able to evade time and remain unchanged for years and even centuries.
Her travels and studies have been a fundamental aspect of her artistic development. In the summer of 2000, She went to the City of Light, with a Bachelor degree of Arts in Communication Sciences by the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Mexico. There, she began her formal training as an artist and photographer, and developed her first body of work, “Details,” which focuses on portraying statues of classical Greek marble, chasing this idea of perfection and beauty that somehow persists in humans through time and at the same time, these statues give the impression of people who have been frozen and have been around for ages.
Roberta has exhibited in prestigious places like the ICP of New York, the Arsenal of Venice, Mona Bismarck Foundation in Paris and MARCO Museum of Monterrey in Mexico. Roberta has been awarded the gold medal Photographica Gallery in San Francisco among others.
Statement
Whenever I get to know a new country or culture, I wonder about its past. I look for people that belong to those places to share their stories with me. Invariably, each and one of these tales have some elements that are true and some invented, misinterpreted, exaggerated or distorted elements. I believe that somewhere between the notion of past exists something that becomes myth, falsehood or illusion; It is a time that no one can judge what reallyhappened and never will know for sure if there were made-up elements, misunderstood, exaggerated or distorted facts, because there is no one single event that everyone in the world have witnessed at the same time to testify that something is in deed, real or not.
This interest in the relationship between what is real or fantasy, arises from a feeling of fear I experienced as a child to be judged for what I do and having to always tell the truth. With photography, I find a parallel world where I can be free and play with this duality; where I can create, invent, falsify, distort, shape, hide, reveal, mutate my own stories without fear.
Through my work, I look to confuse the viewer using long exposures, timeless aesthetic, light painting and old techniques and reflections among others. I’m interested in who sees my photographs get lost in a timeline, either by the characters, places and objects that could be contemporary, but they have an ancient aesthetic. In my photographs it is common to find bodies that manage to cheat death, which are between the living and the dead, for example: a stuffed animal or a classical sculpture. In neither case you can establish the time they were alive or were created, because their existence remains intact for centuries. My photographs turn into ghosts that mingle in a timeline.