Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation

historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence, and subjugation but made using the genteel 18th-century art of cut-paper silhouettes. Set in the American South before the Civil War, Walker’s compositions play off stereotypes to portray, often grotesquely, life on the plantation, where masters and mistresses and slave men, women, and children... See more

Kara Walker uses silhouettes to visually reduce complex figures to racial and sexual stereotypes, making them ambiguous and forcing viewers to confront their own biases and preconceptions. Silhouettes, a form historically used for genteel portraiture, allow her to subvert expectations by blending the beautiful with the grotesque, revealing the... See more