“Deborah Roberts: Fragile but Fixable” runs through June 16 at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. The exhibition marks the artist’s first solo show in Los Angeles.

Roberts creates powerful and visually arresting collages that explore the complexities of girlhood, self-image, popular culture and the legacies of racism. In “Fragile but Fixable,” Roberts continues to address the traumas, challenges and vulnerabilities faced by young black girls at adolescence, a critical time when they are building their individual identities and their minds are easily influenced by white racial standards of beauty and the myths, clichés and stereotypes of black identity in the media, as well as the real-life abuse and violence that some of them experience in public and in private.

Combining found photographs, painting, text and drawing, Roberts constructs her prismatic subjects from a myriad of sources, including images of young girls, radical and historical figures, and contemporary female role models – from Rosa Parks and Michelle Obama to Gloria Steinem and Willow Smith – altered beyond recognition to create a portrait that adheres to a more universal standard that is inclusive of women of color.

Each work is an amalgamation of several or more figures, a reflection of the complexities of identity and race, and a metaphor for the way we construct our own complicated subjectivities from multiple sources.

“My work is about being empowered as a black woman by taking responsible for your image and controlling how that image is being circulated in the world,” Roberts said.

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is located at 2685 S. La Cienega Blvd. For information, visit luisdejesus.com.