Teacher Write up:
Ms. Kara Walker is an African American artist who rose to fame for her use of large paper silhouettes to explore social issues surrounding gender, race and Black history. Kara Walker was born in 1969 in Stockton, California. At the Rhode Island School of Design, Walker began working in the silhouette form. In 1994, her work appeared in a new-talent show at the Drawing Center in New York and she became an instant hit. In 1997, she received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Since then, Walker's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. Ms. Walker is best known for her panoramic friezes of cut paper silhouettes which usually black figures against a white wall, which address the history of American slavery and racism through violent and unsettling imagery. The students were asked to create silhouette trees like some that Ms. Walker have in her work and were provided guided practice for them to create this.
Featured Student: Alice Phillips
Student write up:
Mrs. H.B taught us about Ms. Kara Walker and how she draws things in Black and white and it looks like shadows. She told us they are called silhouettes. My picture looks like a bunch a fog in the trees"