The Girl Next Door, 2019

Amy Sherald: If I think about the “girl next door” archetype, in historical paintings, we're looking for depictions of young women who appear approachable, natural, and embody an idealized version of everyday femininity. 

In the beginning these paintings were not made with the idea of an archetype in mind, but I realized that as I got deeper and deeper into my practice, that these figures, these portraits that I was painting were to represent something bigger, like an archetype of a kind of person that was an American.

If you're looking at this painting, The girl next door or any of the paintings in this room right now, the deliberate use of a single figure in an often dreamlike suspended space allows the subjects to exist on their own terms, unburdened by context, yet deeply present. This strategy transforms the historical function of portraiture, creating a space where Black identity is not defined by struggle or stereotype, but by quiet power, self-possession and a sense of timelessness. She is my classmate. She's my neighbor. She's the woman that owns the boutique up the street. She's every woman. Not to sound like Whitney.