Kara Walker


Kara Walker’s work is steeped in the subject of race. Her often exaggerated cut outs of facial features, body shapes, and costume use line to consciously identify the ethnicity of her subjects identity through assumption and comment on the way race is used to define us through visual stereotype. Walker's use of the silhouette is both an ironic and complex way to address these issues, since the paper Walker uses to cut out most of the images for her wall murals is black. This media eliminates the need for her to create skin tones and effectively renders all of her figures “black.” For these pieces the racial status assigned to her characters is visible through stereotype and caricature, more often than not exaggerated facial feature i.e big lips to inject humour and mock these stereotypical generalisations. For Walker, using the silhouette came from her thinking about what it means for groups of people to define themselves through images. This is a personal interest of the artist, who says that making artwork about race translates into intimate issues about identity and society. The


compositions scenes also convey mindsets about assumed racial behaviours, mainly explicit assumptions of black women being almost sole sucking and sexually crazed with a for gone substantial libido. walkers pieces are mostly intriguing due to the depth of contrast in her pieces and the message within the scenarios prevoking interpenetration. The focal point is based around role reversal and 1500's African american slavery, highlighting class and monopoly of power.


walker has inspired my personal work due to the fact that such simplicity brings to surface such complex politics and standings on race and society. Although personally I had not adopted the motive behind her work, neither had i put a message behind mine, i took on the technique of creating the silhouettes in an attempt to create a depth of colour in my final mural.