Kara Walker

Some of Kara Walker's most prominent works are cut paper silhouettes done on a massive scale. She generally addresses identity and gender issues, particularly for African American women. However, Walker does use graphic imagery for these silhouettes, which has a tendency to cause controversy.

"Virginia's Lynch Mob," 1998, is posted above. In it you can see not only the large scale that Walker posts on, but the graphic nature of her pieces. Not only is there a person hanging upsidedown from a stick, but there is an image of a boy blowing his brains out with a shot gun. It would take me a lot of courage to make images such as these, especially anticipating the potentially negative feedback I would receive on them.

In my fundamentals of art and design class last semester, we did a project using contact paper to make solid black forms to stick to things. I then used my leftover contact paper to make an elephant decal for my laptop. One of my biggest difficulties with both the assignment and my personal side project was cutting out the small details, not to mention sticking them down without accidentally tearing them off. I can not even imagine how Walker accomplished this. I really enjoy the aesthetic of these silhouettes, though, and intend on incorporating something similar into work I do in the future.