Kara Walker The Color Purple Analysis

Kara Walker is a disrupter. The kind of rabble-rouser that evokes the power of the visual to create artistic works that undo the sanitized rendering of American history. Her form of resistance has its genesis in placing on display the horrific conditions and savagery that black bodies have experienced at various stages in time. Often, visual forms of opposition are more palpable since the eye, to humans, is the most trustworthy conduit that we own. Therefore, the act of looking, is a robust entry point into engaging with images on an intimate and emotional level, that elicit an instantaneous response. Walker summonses the eye to engage with what it identifies and to interrogate what it does not comprehend.
Growing up with an artist for a father
Both figures in this stage remain faceless, yet the distinction between the two is clearly visible, specifically in their attire, however, what is more intriguing about this moment is the steadiness in the body of the African. The dominant narrative constructed by Eurocentric viewpoints depicts Africans as a placeless people, void of civilization, in need of and even inviting a chance to be refined. Still, the body language of the African tells a different story. There is a sense of control, an exertion of identity and comfortability within the space in which she stands. The control over her body denotes a sense of place; an ownership and relationship to the land that unsettles the historical narrative of the African as one without a symbolic home. Additionally, the deeply intricate power dynamic between the two figures also signifies the defiance of the African and the trickery of the colonizer. The African is not willingly placing her body in a relaxed position for the colonizer; instead, she is sturdy, commanding and nonconformist. Therefore, the water directly behind her body indicates the other tactics used in order to enslave her. The rising of the water is representative of the inflated white male ego that
Additionally, it exhibits the interdependency between both through the dramatic clouds, which epitomizes the constructed and forced bind that keeps them connected even, at times, to the chagrin of both. The white cloud is representative of the system of oppression that whites created through colonialism and the fanatical need to maintain a system of capitalism at the expense of black bodies. Contrastingly, the black cloud signifies the resistance and constant struggles that people of color have endured historically in their attempts to be identified as humans in a place that they built. The complexities of this particular scene in this final stage are what makes Kara Walker’s work brilliant. Her ability to contextualize the past and juxtapose it into a contemporary moment makes it old enough to be considered a historical moment worthy of reflection as well as a modern enough moment to reflect upon honestly by way of experience. This visual rejects ideologies that disconnect white people from their past; one that they do not have to engage with simply because they did not enslave blacks or the refusal to believe that they benefit from the system that created the “no world” that black bodies belong