Margaret Roleke

Roleke has lived and worked in New York and Connecticut for most of her life. Her work has been exhibited often in a variety of venues including recent exhibits in 2020 at  Victori +Mo, NYC in a show titled Armed Disposal which dealt with gun violence and  Pen +Brush, NYC in which she had the lower project space. In 2020 Roleke  received an artist fellowship award from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. 

Roleke’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Artnet News,  The Guardian, and additional publications. 

Throughout her career Margaret Roleke has created  outdoor sculptures  and wall pieces. Currently her billboard titled Thank You is on display in Detroit, Michigan. The billboard which is 11’high by 22’wide was sponsored by Saveartspace.org and is  derived from a cyanotype she created. Presently Roleke’s piece Clean Version 2 (an outdoor banner) is on display on her barn visible from the road as part of an exhibit titled Art Off Screen curated by Eileen Jeng Lynch. Her piece Danger which is also a cyanotype turned into a banner was recently on exhibit in the backyard of the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven, CT.

In 2019 Roleke was awarded a residency through QAI (Queens Artist Intervention) and created a sculpture at Elmhurst Sculpture Garden. The garden was created in 2017 in an overgrown lot near the off ramp of the Long Island Expressway at the intersection of Queens Blvd and Woodhaven Blvd. The garden is open 24 hours and unguarded in a very active location. Roleke’s sculpture Shotgun Home (America) is made out of spent shotgun shells and has been installed for over a year without damage at the garden. Roleke’s sculpture Shell Shelter was installed at Beechwood Arts in Westport,CT in 2019 and was on exhibit for a year.

In 2017  Roleke’s sculpture Gun Club was installed outdoors at Governor’s Island,NYC and was unguarded and interacted with by the public for two months. This piece was 5’5”h x 30’w x 8’d and was composed of a steel frame that was covered with  spent shotgun shells.