Born in 1969, American artist Kara Walker is best known for her black and white paper-cut silhouettes that address issues of race, gender, sexuality and power, specifically depicting the atrocities of slavery.
She draws inspiration from the iconography of eighteenth-century pre-Civil War for her silhouettes, which are often caricatures of antebellum stereotypes, such as mammies, sambos, slave mistresses, masters, and Southern belles. They are frequently arranged in exaggerated narrative sequences that employ vulgar imagery, with the figures committing violent and sexual acts. Over the years, she has explored the device of the silhouette through paintings, drawings, collages, shadow puppets, cut steel, film and video animations, and “magic-lantern” projections.
The Means to an End… Shadow Drama in Five Acts, is a five part series that imitates the structure of a historical romance novel. It was completed in 1995 during the mid part of her career and was Walker’s first printmaking project.
