Caroline Roberts is a fine art photographer frustrated by our fencing off and general ignorance of the natural world. She is fascinated by our human attempts to classify, investigate and understand as a way to preserve an illusion of control. Her photographic installations play on well-established knowledge systems, such as the herbarium, the museum display, the field guide, and the library.
The chance encounter of a sunny afternoon and a pack of sun print paper introduced Roberts to photograms. She was immediately drawn to use this direct contact between a light-sensitive surface and the world to sample nature – collecting ghostly reminders of its presence. She prefers historic photographic processes for their inherent unpredictability. Harking back to the era of Victorian gentlewoman scientists, her artistic practice draws on chance and her spirit of inquiry as she manipulates and disrupts her processes and materials.
Born in the United Kingdom, Roberts lives and works in Houston, Texas. Often found hiking in state and national parks, Roberts’ interest in landscape and the natural world is heightened by managing fifteen acres of wild, riparian forest in rural Texas.
