Womanist/Feminist, Purple/Lavender

A lengthy name “Womanist is to Feminist as Purple is to Lavender” is not only a widely cited statement by novelist, poet, and activist Alice Walker. Starting October 19th, an online exhibition by Amy Sherald will be unveiled under this title at Hauser & Wirth. Small-scale portraits, that the artist created over the course of the pandemic, and is a prelude to Amy Sherald’s first West Coast solo exhibition planned for February 2021. Each painting 11 by 7 inches in size, are packed with meaning. The works reveal not only the artist’s experimentation with paint, but open a discussion about social portraiture, a tradition that fo too long excluded the Black men, women, and families whose lives have been inextricable from the grand narrative of American experience. Amy Sherald is know from documenting contemporary African-American experience in the United States through otherworldly portraits, and the online exhibition offers a great opportunity for an audience unlimited by geographical boundaries, to discover and immerse in her art, before her big solo show.