Kara Walker

Kara Walker !

✴ Contemporary American artist. !

✴ She went to RISD for painting and printmaking in Providence.

✴ Her work focusses on the themes of race, power, freedom, equality, discrimination, and identity.

✴ She uses historical narratives as the content for her artwork — she represents moments in history in the form of a visual story and then plays these stories out using silhouettes.

“Goethe facing a grave monument” cut paper, 1780

Narrative: A story or account of events, experiences, or the like.

In art it is a type of visual storytelling. The artist uses imagery, symbols and composition choices to reveal elements from a story while encouraging the viewer’s imagination.

Silhouette: A view of an object or a scene consisting of just the outline of the subject’s contour with a featureless interior. This interior is usually solid black.

Kara Walker

Kara Walker, “The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven” (1995)

Kara Walker, “Post Katrina Adrift” (2007)

Theodore Gericault, “The Raft of the Medusa”, 1819

Symbolic Imagery !

Representing larger things or ideas with simpler visual symbols, or investing specific imagery with a symbolic meaning. !

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Kara Walker

Kara Walker

Kara Walker

Silhouettes in Art !

✴ The term “silhouette” was first used in the 1700’s to describe portraits and leisure scenes cut from thin black card.

✴ They began as a form of amusement for royalty and high society, to tell the stories of the wealthy and their daily lives.

✴ Due to traveling artists that visited small towns and fairs, the art form became even more popular and began to reach everyday people in the 1800’s.

“Jane Austin” cut paper, 1810–1815

August Edouart, French silhouette artist, 1800’s

August Edouart, French silhouette artist, 1800’s

August Edouart, French silhouette artist, 1800’s

Lotte Reiniger, German artist and inventor of Silhouette Animation, 1899–1981

Lotte Reiniger, German artist and inventor of Silhouette Animation, 1899–1981

Lotte Reiniger, German artist and inventor of Silhouette Animation, 1899–1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXG71sTbRgE&spfreload=10

Béatrice Coron, Contemporary French artist, “Water City”, 2005

Béatrice Coron, Contemporary French artist

Béatrice Coron, Contemporary French artist

Béatrice Coron, Contemporary French artist

Béatrice Coron, Contemporary French artist

Your assignment !

✴ For this project you will each choose a short quote (1–2 sentences) from either a poem or a piece of literature that is of importance to you or that inspires you.

✴ You will then depict this quote visually by using the methods of Kara Walker: you will create a visual narrative of your quote using symbolic imagery and the paper cut silhouette technique.

✴ You will be working in Black and White and using pops of color or contrast (ex: solid color, magazine/newspaper, a different material, etc) sparingly to punctuate meaning, signify importance, or to direct the viewers attention.