Amy Sherald: American Sublime

Although Sherald is a painter, photography is at the heart of her process. Her interest in creating portraits of Black people stems, in part, from a childhood fascination with family snapshots and albums, which she studied to learn about relatives she had never met. In her view, photography offered Black Americans their first opportunity to create self-narratives: “We could pose ourselves, and we could represent ourselves, and we could show up in these images the way that we wanted to be seen.”

Sherald’s process begins by choosing a model, composing them carefully with clothing and props, and then photographing them. The final photograph serves as a study from which to create a painting. Thus, while her works are based on specific individuals, they are simultaneously speculative and imaginary— worlds unto themselves.