Kara Walker

Kara Walker was inspired to be an artist by her father.  She would sit in his lap and watch him draw, and around three years old she decided she wanted to be an artist just like him.  Since then she has been creating art that has boggled the mind, bringing the history of slavery together with humor, narratives, and fantasy to tell a unique story.

Walker was first inspired to do her pieces after the book, Gone with the Wind.  She used this as a base for her work, catching that old ideal of slavery in the south.  Walker works mostly with black silhouettes.  She free hand draws the silhouettes on black paper, cuts them out and adheres them to the back ground where she wants to tell the story.  Her pieces are unique, each has its own character, whether it be a devil with horns, or a black southern woman popping out children like it is no big deal.  There could be a southern woman eating another woman’s head to children with horns and devil tails.  Her work captivates the mind and shows you the sick side of southern humor.  Though her work is just black silhouettes, you still get a sense of the shape of the people and actions based on the way she cuts the paper, in precise detail.  Each part of the narrative leads you into the next part, and back around again.

Her works are narratives that you can be a part of.  Her pieces are life size, so the viewer can feel as if they are in the story.  When you stand with her pieces you feel as if you are part of the work, with your shadow casting on the wall with the other silhouettes.  Walker uses projectors and lights to cast colors and shadows on the wall, to give depth to her work and to allow the viewer to be a part of it.  Walker has taken something as conventional as silhouettes and transformed them into artwork that is not only considered fine art, but leaves the viewer looking for more.  With the viewer only seeing the silhouettes, it leaves the viewer a chance to fill in the rest of the story.         



Darkytown Rebellion 2001

 

From the Bowel to the Bossom



Salvery! Slavery!  1997

You Do 1993-4