Artist Presentation: Kara Walker

I decided to choose Kara Walker as my artist because her work has always intrigued me in how romantic and dreamy it appears to be, while holding underlying notes of turbulence and violence. She is most widely known for her black silhouette figures on stark white backgrounds that she typically overlays with a digital projection of colors. Much of her work is based in the historical vein and she focuses largely on African American racial issues and the history of slavery, and while this doesn't apply to my work directly, her aesthetic qualities appeal to me so much and the way her work is a deceptive fantasy which is actually quite dark.

One of her most well-known pieces, Gone: An Historical Reference of a Civil War as It Occurred b'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart, particularly and continuously intrigues me through this very aspect of deception. Most viewers read this art like a book, from left to right, meaning the starting point of the two lovers gives the impression of pure romance and fuzzy feelings. The fact that silhouettes are used places a great emphasis on the forms themselves, since there isn't any detail within the subjects. Upon closer examination of these forms though, the viewer notices first the legs underneath the woman's dress, giving a sinister twist to the viewer's first perception, and then once the eye follows the line of the leash the gentleman is holding, the scene only gets worse. From a child on a leash holding a dead bird to a couple of children pleasuring each other to a woman seemingly popping out babies to two figures with one literally sitting on the other's head, this work is full of crudity and vulgar racial stereotypes meant to disturb the viewer and confront them with harsh realities while still managing to draw them in. This relationship works well with the emphasis on form placed throughout the work and the delicate use of line that isn't too dark to distract from the rest of the work, while also leading the viewer's eye across the frame to more and more bizarre and disconcerting scenes.

Gone: An Historical Reference of a Civil War as It Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart, 1994, Paper, Overall 13 x 50