Kara Walker

Kruti Patel
Art and Women

Kara Walker

Kara Elizabeth Walker is an African American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, artist, and film-maker who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. Walker lives in New York City and went to Columbia University. She is currently serving a five-year term as Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts and Rutgers University. Walker is best known for her panoramic friezes of cut-paper silhouettes, usually black figures against a white wall, which shows the history of American slavery and racism through violence. She first came to the art world's attention in 1994 with her mural Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War. She also relies on humor and viewer interaction in her art. She has challenged and changed the way people look at and understand American history.