Roberta grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Spending time at the High Museum of Art and going to the fledgling Piedmont Park Art Festival, she imagined her paintings would one day hang among the artists she so admired.

She attended Vanderbilt University, earned her BA in Art History and returned to Atlanta after graduation where she continued pursuing her passion for art, taking classes at the High Museum and Georgia State University.

Moving to San Diego in 1971, Roberta took art classes as time would allow and has since enjoyed many forms of expression from sculpture to copper enameling, oil painting to mural assignments. Today, she focuses on non-representational paintings and figurative subjects.

Roberta is an award-winning, Signature member of the San Diego Watercolor Society, the International Society of Acrylic Painters (ISAP) and the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies.  Often juried into prestigious competitive international exhibitions, you can enjoy her artwork regularly hanging at the San Diego Watercolor Society and the Ashton Gallery at Art on 30th in San Diego.

Roberta’s art is best described as expressive, whether figurative or abstract.  She uses a combination of bold color and mixed media techniques to present her subjects in unusual ways.

“I am constantly pulled by two loves – painting figures and painting abstracts. It makes me happy to work with the push and pull of these two disciplines. I want to explore how design and pattern interact to make a realistic subject more abstract and enhance the theme of the painting. For me, the process of painting involves adding and removing and editing as I go along.  If something doesn’t work, I simply paint it out and go in a different direction. I don’t try to paint likenesses, that is a task for portrait artists.  I use figures and animals as shapes in a painting and my intent in these paintings is to portray animals and humans as survivors – vulnerable but strong.  I also love pure abstraction using mixed media along with acrylic paint.”

For the past few years Roberta has been teaching artists to reach beyond their own expectations to create unique, energetic and engaging work.