biography

Keisha Roberts draws inspiration from history and culture, and the striking graphic composition of African textiles. She forges passions for art, history, and culture into fine art, exhibition experiences, research projects, lectures, workshops, and works of non-fiction.

Her current work is a synthesis between figurative and conceptual elements. She infuses personal, familial, and cultural memory into each piece, while incorporating the continuity and tradition of generations of quiltmaking. She is also creating drawings, paintings, and quilted sculptures that integrate glass, ceramics, and encaustic to create quilted, mixed media works of art.

After earning degrees in History, Women's Studies, and African and African American Studies, and a certificate in Communication at Duke University, Keisha was the project coordinator for the nationally heralded oral history project Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in Jim Crow South at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She wrote the chapter Resistance and Political Struggles in the book Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South, which won the Southern Regional Council's Lillian Smith Book Award, the Multicultural Review's Carey McWilliams Book Award, and the Library Journal's Best Book of 2001 award. She completed the Museum Studies Distance Program in Collection Care at The George Washington University.

Keisha owned a graphic design firm for 10 years and is the principal designer for an award-winning new media firm. She is actively engaged in several museum boards and committees, including the board of directors of the Alliance for American Quilts and its Quilters' Save Our Stories oral history project board task force.

Keisha's work is held in museum and private collections in the United States, England, and South Africa and she has curated and exhibited in solo, group, and traveling exhibitions across the country and internationally. Her work can be viewed in many exhibitions annually, and is currently on view in the national touring exhibitions Textural Rhythms: Constructing the Jazz Tradition and The Journey of Hope in America: Quilts Inspired by Barack Obama, both curated by Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi. Keisha and her work are featured in books including Textural Rhythms and The Journey of Hope in America, and an NPR interiew.

A native of North Carolina, Keisha's home and studio are in San Francisco, California.