Current projects

Biography

Statement

From where we come – a community installation

For this new project I plan to create a large installation made of individually sewn and decorated framed figures that reflect the improvisational elements of African American life and lifestyles. I look for ethereal, spiritual and intriguing physical qualities . . 

Bob Dilworth’s figurative work often tackles issues of race, culture, ethnicity, family, heritage, and xenophobia through metaphor and allegory.

Canvases employ an aesthetic gesture towards moments in art history that run parallel to current times. In these works his philosophy, and its implications, become, “Every identity is unstable. No one is free from himself or from others.”

My work seeks to negotiate and express the connection between the lived experience and contradictions that govern that experience.

Making sense of irony has led me to focus on two principal issues in recent years. One has to do with personal discovery – exploring my Southern African American family relationships, examining the myths, folktales, and religious beliefs that have direct bearing and influence on my upbringing in Lawrenceville, Virginia.