Kara Walker: Artist Profile
BIRTH PLACE: Stockton, California
MEDIUMS: Painting, Cut Paper, Print Making, Installation Art, Film.
STYLE: Contemporary Art; Conceptual Art
TRAINING: Atlanta College of Art Atlanta, GA. 1991; Rhode Island School of Design Providence, RI. 1994
PLACE OF RESIDENCE: New York, New York
RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITIONS: Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. 2007, Minneapolis, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Fort Worth; A Subtlety…2014, Brooklyn, New York; Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First, 2015, Victoria Miro, London
ON DISPLAY: Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Tate Gallery, London; the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI), Rome; and Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt.
Kara Walker‘s career is primarily dominated by her interest in silhouettes. Her deliberate choices in medium not only add deeper meaning to her conceptual projects, but also make her a great model for contemporary style of art. The pieces are generously large, typically engulfing spectators in the narrative. She is most well-known for her rawness in her various eye-catching projects depicting racism, sexism, and gender. Her projects are fearlessly captivating and shocking as they reveal controversial subjects and drive spectators to face them head on.
Originally born in Stockton, California, in 1969, Kara Walker was raised in Atlanta Georgia after moving there at the age of thirteen. She went on to study at the Atlanta College of Art where she got her BFA in 1991. After, she attended the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with an MFA in 1994. Walker works in several different mediums such as painting, instillation, and film, but is most popular for her shadow silhouettes. Her transition from California to Georgia was the pivotal period in her life as the symbols she saw in the south, many representing racist ideals, sparked the drive and narration for her work,
“There is a moment when you go from subject to object and I guess that was my moment.”
Walker had an interest in writing to “find her voice,” which she has said later translated into the cut paper images. Moving to Georgia, Walker has said, was where she “became black.” The diversity of California is missed in Atlanta, which made her very aware of the still existing racism. She noted that in Georgia, life was “locked into black and white,” which is legitimately expressed in her work. Walker first began working with silhouettes while she attended the Rhode Island School of Design. She exhibited her first silhouetted works while in school but did not receive much popularity until later. These intricate shadows, each crafted from cut paper, come together to from energized compositions that reveal a deeper narrative. Inspiration for some of her other work comes from ignorant misrepresentations of slaves and minority groups in mainstream media. The deeper symbolism behind the silhouettes reveal a parallel to society turning a blind eye to the social issues still existing today. Walker says,
“The silhouette lends itself to avoidance of the subject — of not being able to look at it directly — yet there it is, all the time, staring you in the face.”
She has been influenced by other artists similarly interested in challenging racism in society. A big influence in her artistic career has been her father. An artist himself, Larry Walker’s art career has reflected personal struggles he’s dealt with. Kara’s work follows this theme as her narratives typically reveal historical and societal struggles, and further how these have created personal struggles.
Her first notably recognized piece, “Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart”, was exhibited in the Drawing Center of New York in 1994 and caught the eye and attention of many, ultimately jump-starting her success. The black and white piece portrays several scenes of black paper figures in a“storybook like” landscape. The figures have defined features which portray their age, gender, and even their race. One of these “scenes” depict a kiss between a seemingly higher class woman and man, in a grass field. Another suggests a woman lifting her skirt to birth children while standing up. Influenced by the book Gone With the Wind, her piece “Gone”, reflects associations to the foundation of America being based on racism and how time has changed but many of these ideals have not. More recently, her 2014 commissioned piece “A Subtlety”, installed at an old Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn featured numerous sculptures built from sugar and received worldwide recognition.
Walker currently is a Professor in the MFA program at Columbia University in New York City. Some of her most notable achievements are receiving the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997, being nominated as Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and being selected as director, set and costume designer for a project for the 2015 Venice Biennale. Her work has been exhibited in numerous museums and shows around the world.
