Art 21/ Artist II: Kara Walker

Art 21/ Artist II: Kara Walker 

                   When I first saw Kara Walker's artworks, those reminded me Michel Ocelot's silhouette animation. His animations and silhouette did not included his personal emotions or experience but made an interesting story line including romance. However, her artworks comprised her illusions about past events and complexity of her own life. She did not intended any romance of the story telling but she did put it in unexpectedly. She liked a history painting, thinking about characters and those characters on the stage. So she presented her feelings with those silhouettes but in a story. 

Kara Walker's silhouette artwork

Michel Ocelot's Princes et Princesses

   

               Moreover, Kara Walker expressed on her artworks about her hard times suffered by heroine. At that time, she had a mixed feeling of wanting the heroine and wanting to kill the heroine. So when you look into her work closely, you can actually see cruelty in character's actions. But I was impressed how she overcame a drug addiction with art. 

               During an interview, she commented that black people had never been treated equally as the white. Strong people rules weak people and she expressed this in her work. For example, a white woman deprives the baby of a black woman.  

 

                 After watching about her video from Art 21, I realized there is no limit in art. Although her works are only in black and white, she described each character so well that there is no need for any other detail. Her works are never motionless because every single figure carries vivid stories.