DJ Roberts is interested in 'non spaces', those parts of cities and their suburbs which have no real coherence: waste ground, buildings whose purpose is unclear, buildings which look as if they might be part of a film set or which call to mind half remembered events or emotions.

It is the ambiguity of these places which excites him, their sense of mystery and of something being hidden. Because they lack definition and because it is difficult to see where they belong, they allow the imagination free play. They have the ability to suggest things rather than pin things down.

The paintings are small in format, in no way intended to be grand, and are hybrid images composed of drawings done from life or from imagination, clippings cut from magazines and photographs taken in the street. Thus they are literally as well as metaphorically 'non places'. They are roughly painted, in keeping with the subject matter, and here and there veils of paint and other surface imperfections are used to dissolve the image and distance it.