Kara Walker
Kara Walker is a female African-american contemporary artist who works in silhouettes and large-scale installations. Her work explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity. She lives in New York and currently teaches at Columbia University.
" I guess there was a little bit of a slight rebellion, maybe a little bit of a renegade desire that made me realize at some point in my adolescence that I really liked pictures that told stories of things - genre paintings, historical paintings - the sort of derivatives we get in contemporary society."
-Kara Walker
Below is a video from Kara Walker's PBS ART21 video segment.
Artwork by Kara Walker:
Lesson Connection
Connecting a lesson to Kara Walker could consider different aspects of history and researching particular times that interest the students. The students could then create narratives within their artwork that are not real, but accurately depict that time. The narrative artwork could express personal and social strife, similar to the ways that Kara Walker creates in her own work. Students could even create heroes and heroines within their narratives like Walker is known for doing.