Dec 25

Dec 25 Amy Sherald: A New Artist Voice for Black America

The girl next door, 2019. Oil on canvas. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Many contemporary artists of color have been painting figurative works in an effort to increase representation of Black identity in museums and galleries. The movement has been ushered by artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker and others, and next in line, is Amy Sherald.

Sherald’s career has catapulted since being commissioned by the Natural Portrait Gallery to paint Michelle Obama’s portrait. Since then, she has joined mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth and her work has been omnipresent worldwide.

Working out of her Jersey City studio at Mana Contemporary, Sherald has scaled up her paintings, reaching 11 x 10 feet in size. Yet, she has remained true to her subjects and creative process. She continues to source African-American images from vintage photographs and paints them onto canvas with keen precision. In her first solo show, the heart of the matter… at Hauser & Wirth, Sherald’s subjects personify confidence. They are bright, fashionable and vivacious; they are dressed in colorful, patterned attire that contrast against her monochromatic, flamboyant backgrounds. Their skin tones are consistently painted in a shade of neutral grey known as grisaille, ironically muting and adding dimensionality to the composition.

Sherald’s artwork is serious and resolute in its message. She is determined to break Black stereotypes by reconditioning the American psyche, and she directly addresses the stereotypes and storylines perpetuated and manipulated by mass media. Sherald is here to stay and is painting her legacy one complex and nuanced Black portrait at a time.

the heart of the matter… was on view from September 10, 2019 to October 26, 2019 at Hauser & Wirth in Chelsea, NYC.