Awareness Post - Amy Sherald

https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/11577-amy-sherald/

Amy Sherald was born in Columbus, Georgia on August 30, 1973. She currently lives in New York City and is known for her contemporary portraits of the African American experience. She recieved her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and her BFA from Clark-Atlanta University. Her work is displayed in a number of solo and group exhibitions across the world, from Charlottesville, to London, to Shanghai. Her work is also a part of a long lsit of public collections and artist residencies. Among the impressive display of awards she has won are the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award, Bethesda Painting Award, and Anonymous Was A Woman Award.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/10/painter-amy-sherald-michelle-obama-breonna-taylor-interview

Sherald has experienced a number of losses of family members she was very close to at a young age, which is part of her inspiration for her drive to inspire younger artists. Sherald prides herself on the direct and sincere qualities of her work, clearly portraying her message through the use of bold colors and defined shapes.

Although Amy Sherald's work does not directly relate to mine, I have been interested in her work for a long time, and I have loved watching her work evolve over time. Apart from the powerful messages of African American empowerment embedded in her work, I also enjoy many of the design choices she makes. I am especially drawn to color, and it is something that I pay a lot of attention to in my work. The bold colors of Sherald's work are entrancing, and the contrast created by her color choices makes her pieces even more interesting to look at. I also really like the patterns that Sherald uses in the background of some of her earlier pieces, and I have more recently become inspired to try using a similar pattern in the background of one of my paintings to see how it adds interest. Finally, I love the crisp lines of Sherald's figures, and even though I am not a figure painter, I love the crispness of the circles in most of my work. Sherald's use of these sharp lines is a completely different example of the effect of precise brush strokes, but it has helped me better understand the importance of this in my work. These elements are all clearly displayed in the two works below, but the part of these paintings that really stood out to me were the backgrounds, as I was pulled in by the texture and the contrast of the colors with the subject of the pieces.