Darrell Roberts: Everything is About Art All the Time
Carrie McGath
From Darrell Roberts' Collection
When one looks at a painting by Chicago artist, Darrell Roberts, one will see his process. His hands are in the work, easily detectable in the motion of the thick paint that abounds on his small canvases. Roberts’ infatuation with collecting art is also a tangible process, the collection illustrating his continuous adoration of art.
On his website, Roberts states: “For me everything is about art all the time.” This dramatic sentiment certainly stands up when observing his prolific collection. Roberts walked with me to a local restaurant on Halsted called DeColores. There, he showed me the collection he lent to the restaurant. Some were portraits Roberts had painted, a series called Art Therapy, but most of the others were artworks from his collection including a Karl Wirsum print and a work by Fraser Taylor, both faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where Roberts received his MFA in painting in 2003.
In addition to creating art and collecting it, Roberts teaches painting at the Hyde Park Art Center and also runs a unique gallery, the 2nd Floor Gallery, that is located within his apartment, the walls painted with “Art Institute white” as Roberts proudly stated. With all of this, his contention that everything is about art certainly rings true. 
Robert MacNeill "Invisible City"
From DeColores, we walked to Roberts’ Pilsen apartment that doubles as 2nd Floor Gallery. The gallery’s Facebook page expresses its mission, one that speaks to Roberts’ own individual feelings about art being in an individual’s surroundings. “2ND FLR Gallery is a space where art is exhibited in a home-type setting and not the standard white cube. You’ll be able to interact with the work as if you already owned it and see how it would look in your home.” The exhibition space does not put on any airs that it is a traditional white cube, instead the space possesses a personal ease that allows the artwork to breathe and live among those who love it.
Sarah Kaiser "Anonymous Boy #2"
In our discussion about collecting, he admitted to a veritable obsession with collecting art. “I just like having art around me. There’s an energy in mark-making and color. I just like anything a person physically made by hand.” His apartment is a testament to this for sure, a space where there seems to be nothing mass-marketed, down to the furniture that is unique, pieces that have been coddled and created by human hands.
Allen Roberta "Male Nude"
But there is a kind of art he does not want to live with: his own. “I don’t want to see my own work while I am working.” He said he would rather be inspired by the work of others as well as the world around him. On walks around the constantly-moving city, he collects found objects and notices the smells of colors and the colors of smells. Like the artwork Roberts creates and collects, his process is all about stimulation: the act of being stimulated and stimulating. It is a process that is contagious, I myself becoming riveted by the thought of beginning my own collection, especially as I narrowed in on a few of my favorite pieces dappling his living room and gallery hallways.
Sarah Ferguson
Allen Roberta’s Male Nude from 1997 gives off a unique beauty in its humorous satirization of kitsch: a pink fabric figure study that results in a sexy, embroidered artwork. Robert MacNeill’s Invisible City at first appears to be an abstract shelf, but upon a closer look it is an amalgam of our contemporary apparatus. It is made of discarded objects that we have cast off paying no mind until MacNeill rebuilds them, puts them in a new context. Then there is Sarah Kaiser’s Anonymous Boy #2, a somber meditation on a hypnotizing boy, the artist’s use of soft color causing a lone boy with a play drum to take on a somberness instead of playfulness.
As far as Darrell Roberts’ favorites, he simply has this to say: “I think my favorite piece is the Judith Geichman’s little pink painting; I could sleep with it and be happy. I also love my Karl Wirsum print. I would grab those two if that was all I could in a fire.”
See some of Darrell Roberts’ collection that is on view now through March at DeColores at 1626 South Halsted in Pilsen.
Filed Under: General Ideas About Collecting
Darrell is a great painter. I am also happy that I have one of my paintings in his collection plus I have a a couple of his paintings hanging in my home…