heckit's blog: December 2024

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

peace

Friday, December 20, 2024

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Sunday, December 15, 2024

While Sherald became known after being commissioned to paint Michelle Obama’s portrait, she has been painting portraits for a long time. The exhibit takes the viewer through early work to develop portraits organized by theme. The works point to the power of ordinary people. The portraits reveal in simple and complex ways how humanness shines forth against a simple colored background. Whether the portraits are human-size or monumental, one cannot escape that one is looking at fellow humans in our communities.

Since she was young she was fascinated by art, staying in for recess to draw. She recalls that on one of her school field trips to a museum she was surprised and shocked to discover that being an “artist” could be a full-time profession. Art wasn’t something in a book, or something that happened a long time ago. It was something people did now. She recalls seeing a work by Bo Bartlett, that included the image of a black, and how seeing her world reflected in the museum was transformative.

Despite being discouraged to go into art by her family, she persevered in the work of making art. The exhibit had a short film that demonstrated how she works. She takes photos of models for her ideas and she works in a large studio working on larger than life canvases. Her studio is clean and organized. I noticed the many tubes of paint she has organized on hooks in her studio.