“Freedom: A Fable”
In her work, Walker explores issues of race, gender, violence, and sexuality. Born in 1969, Kara Walker loves to “scrape the line between fiction and reality” in her artwork. Growing up, she was very conscious about the connotations of being white in Black America and black in White America. Initially inspired by Gone with the Wind, Walker focuses on creating illusions about past events and histories. She creates strong, identifiable cut paper silhouettes that are “melodramatic with outrageous gestures.” Walker continually has a conflict between “wanting to be the heroine and kill the heroine at the same time.” This level of understandable morbidness coupled with her vivid portrayal of characters combine to create nightmarish yet beautiful narrative scenes.
Although many of her scenes are too violent to show in any setting besides late high school, her techniques of cut paper silhouettes could be utilized in any classroom. Discussion should be had about expression, gesture, and identity through body and object placement in relation to one another. For art projects, students could trace outlines of one another in dynamic poses, adding in identifiable objects alongside themselves such as sports equipment, books, food etc. Their silhouettes could then be displayed in a scene where they are interacting with one another. With this, students will not only learn about expression but they will also learn how to work together in a collaborative, open environment.
All quotes in this passage come from her Art21 episode.
Sarah Kedzior 