Kara Elizabeth Walker
Kara Walker is an American conceptual artist, born in a suburb area in Stockton California in 1969. She followed her father’s footsteps and drew inspiration through his artworks when she was a little girl. She received her Bachelors in Atlanta College of Art and went to Rhode Island School of Design for her Masters. Currently she is a professor in Columbia University, teaching Masters of Fine Arts. All her works illustrates historical as well as current issues: racism, gender roles, the history of American slavery, rape and so on. She depicts these issues through brutal and violent imageries. It was only until she was studying in RISD, she realized she wanted to address these issues in her artwork. She experimented for several years and now she is known for working with silhouettes, gouache, watercolor, shadow puppets, animations and life size sculptures. She is most known for her black colored panoramic cut paper silhouettes, in which she says that the simple shapes, shadows are a “metaphor for being able to identify the stereotype with only little information”. One of her artworks, “A Means To An End: A Shadow Drama In Five Acts” is currently hung in a small lounge near the elevators on the 4th floor of the University Center. The moral story, the issue addressed is about the History of American slavery as well as race discrimination between white and colored. The original artwork is glued onto a white wall. However, for this piec, she uses the techniques called etching and aquatint and divided them into 5 individual plates. This piece fits into her mid art career, as she started off addressing slavery and race and began to branch out spreading the message of other current issues on gender and identity.
Some of her artworks –
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Walker
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-walker-kara.htm
http://www.artnet.com/artists/kara-walker/
Notes during the drawing
- Such a quite space but so many people were walking up and down and passing through without looking at the artwork
- Only 4 chairs
- Why it’s placed behind a seating area?
- Looks so whimsical but the context is brutal
- People are staring at me
- Leaving because they feel uncomfortable when i’m drawing them
- There are seats vacant upstairs, why here?
