Kara Walker

Kara Walker
Portrait of Kara Walker by Chuck Close
Born	Kara Elizabeth Walker (1969-11-26) November 26, 1969 (age 47) , U.S.
Nationality	African American
Education	Atlanta College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
Known for	Conceptual Art, multimedia art, text art, painting, printmaking, collage
Notable work	Darkytown Rebellion, no place(like home)
Awards	MacArthur Fellow, Larry Aldrich Award, the Deutsche Bank Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters

Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an African American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, and film-maker who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. Walker lives in New York City and has taught extensively at Columbia University. She is currently serving a five-year term as Tepper Chair in Visual Arts at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Walker was born in in 1969. She lived with her father, Larry Walker (b. 1935), who worked as a painter and professor. Her mother Gwendolyn worked as an administrative assistant. Reflecting on her father's influence, Walker recalls: “One of my earliest memories involves sitting on my dad’s lap in his studio in the garage of our house and watching him draw. I remember thinking: ‘I want to do that, too,’ and I pretty much decided then and there at age 2½ or 3 that I was an artist just like Dad.”

Walker's family eventually moved to Atlanta, where her father took on a position at Georgia State University. The family settled in Stone Mountain.

Walker received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. Walker found herself uncomfortable and afraid to address race within her art during her early college years. However, she found her voice on this topic while attending Rhode Island School of Design for her Master's, where she began introducing race into her art. She had a distinct worry that having race as the nucleus of her content would be received as "typical" or "obvious."