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For more than 20 years, Amy Sherald has been putting the narratives of Black families and Black people to canvas. In 2016, she became the first woman and first African American to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which led to her painting Michelle Obama for the National Portrait Gallery in 2018. That oil-on-linen portrait was her first commissioned workâuntil Breonna Taylor. Taylor is an âAmerican girl, she is a sister, a daughter, and a hard worker. Those are the kinds of people that I am drawn towards,â says Sherald, who is immunosuppressed and has been unable to participate in protests. She calls this portrait a contribution to the âmoment and to activismâproducing this image keeps Breonna alive forever.â
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Sheraldâs process typically begins with taking a picture of her subject. Painting Taylor, a person she had never met, who would never be able to sit for her, presented a unique challenge. Sherald took extraordinary care in reimagining Taylor, inflecting her portrait with symbols of the 26-year-oldâs life. Sherald found a young woman with similar physical attributes, studied Taylorâs hairstyles and fashion choices, and drew inspiration from things she learned about the young womanâthat she had been a frontline worker in the battle against COVID-19; that her boyfriend had been about to propose marriage; that she was self-possessed, brave, loving, loved.
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