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Austin Peay State University to have Michelle Obama portrait artist Amy Sherald speak September 27th

Austin Peay State University Department (APSU)

Austin Peay State University - APSUClarksville, TN – The Austin Peay State University Department of Art + Design, with support from The APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, is pleased to welcome internationally known artist, Amy Sherald, to Austin Peay State University.

Known for her stylized portraits of African-Americans, in 2016, Sherald was the first woman to win the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition; an accompanying exhibition, The Outwin 2016, was on tour through August 2018.

Amy Sherald, who unveiled her Smithsonian-commissioned portrait of Michelle Obama in February, will give a free public lecture 7:30pm September 27th at Austin Peay. (Contributed)
Amy Sherald, who unveiled her Smithsonian-commissioned portrait of Michelle Obama in February, will give a free public lecture 7:30pm September 27th at Austin Peay. (Contributed)

In February 2018, Sherald unveiled her official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, commissioned for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. She will give a public lecture on her past projects and artistic practice at 7:30pm Thursday, September 27th, 2018 in Austin Peay’s University Center Ballroom.

“Her work undermines American beliefs about race as being defined by one’s skin color,” states Dr. Tony Morris, art historian and Art + Design department chair. “In her portraits, Sherald erases color in the skin and hair of her subjects. The absence of color in the figure is particularly jarring when juxtaposed with the colorful clothing worn by her sitters and the flat, color-field background space that they occupy. The presence of bright color elsewhere reinforces the deliberateness of her erasure.”

In February 2018, Sherald unveiled her official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, commissioned for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)
In February 2018, Sherald unveiled her official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, commissioned for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery)

Amy Sherald received her MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art (2004) and B.A. in painting from Clark-Atlanta University (1997). She was a Spelman College International Artist-in-Residence in Portobelo, Panama (1997). Sherald has had solo shows at venues including Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (2016); Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, Maryland (2013); and University of North Carolina, Sonja Haynes Stone Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (2011).

A solo exhibition of new and recent works first opened at Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, in May 2018 and will travel to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta.

Recent group exhibitions include Southern Accent, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (2016), which traveled to Speed Museum of Art, Louisville, Kentucky (2017), and Face to Face: Los Angeles Collects Portraiture, California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2017).

Sherald’s work is held in the public collections of the Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina. Sherald is represented by Hauser & Wirth, New York.

For more on Amy Sherald and her work, visit: www.amysherald.com

For more on this lecture, please contact Michael Dickins, APSU Art + Design director of galleries, at dickinsm@apsu.edu

All events are free and open to the public. All ages are welcome.

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