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Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall Quotes

Artist

Kerry James Marshall is an American artist known for his exploration of the historical and cultural identity of African Americans. His work is typically presented in the form of large-scale murals and paintings, addressing themes such as race, identity, and power.

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All Black People Kind Artist Way Blackness Black People Ifs Thinking Figures Museums Art Former Mean Narrative Portraits Self Shadow Use Want

Famous Kerry James Marshall Quotes

“If you're constantly being reminded of the ways in which your history and your narrative as a people were rooted in loss and decay, then you're in deep trouble. Once you make a certain kind of peace with the past, then you should be completely oriented towards speculation about the future.”

People Ifs Way Should Kind Past Certain Loss Trouble Narrative Rooted Decay Speculation

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“If you look at the image [ Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self ], it treads on a kind of popular stereotypical image of the black figure, in both its flatness and slightly comic edge. To take that image as a starting point and to render it in a proto-classical medium, like egg tempera, and then use a repertoire of classical compositional devices to make the picture was a way of setting up an engagement with art history.”

Ifs Way Looks Kind Art Self Use Artist Black Figures Shadow Starting Edges Setting Mediums Settings Former Comic Eggs Devices Engagement Portraits Starting Point Art History Flatness

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“The condition of visibility as it relates to black people was crucial. Connected to that, I've always been interested in science fiction and horror films and was acutely aware of the political and social implications of Ralph Ellison's description of invisibility as it relates to black people, as opposed to the kind of retinal invisibility that H.G. Wells described in his novel Invisible Man.”

“Comics were a place where captivating images lit your imagination and showed you that you can create new kinds of people and worlds.”

People World Kind Imagination Lit Captivating

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“A lot of stuff that I dealt with - music was my serenity, like kind of my safe place, my haven that I would just use in order to really just get away from the things that I saw every day. To kind of erase the things that I saw. So I stayed playing.”

Kind Use Order Stuff Saws Havens Safe Get Away Serenity Erase Safe Places

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“Sometimes when I can't communicate that I'm frustrated, I'll just grab my guitar and I can play out that emotion and be able to cope with whatever is going on. So even being able to, like I said, share this gift with so many other people, it's definitely very therapeutic. It helps me just to focus and to be able to kind of get out those emotions that I'm having without reacting in such a way that's not acceptable in society.”

People Way Kind Said I Can Sometimes Play Helping Able Emotion Focus Share Guitar Communicate Help Me Acceptable Frustrated Reacting Therapeutic

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“My own personal sound is really progressive. It's like a mixture of gospel, pop, neo-soul, R&B. It's like a huge gumbo. If you're eating gumbo you grab a whole like cup full of whatever. You're getting a whole bunch of stuff that makes this amazing food in your mouth. So that's essentially kind of like what my sound is.”

Ifs Kind Soul Whole Stuff Sound My Own Huge Eating Mouths Pops Bunch Cups Progressive Mixtures Gumbo

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“I decided that the whole idea of what it means to be an artist was that somehow you are ontologically oriented toward poverty : "As an artist, you don't make money." I had to figure out some kind of way to guarantee that I'd be able to continue doing the work that I wanted to do, whether I made money from the work I was doing or not.”

Kind Mean Artist Poverty Making Money

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“In some ways you still have to buy your freedom, but that's because you live in a social structure that's organized around capital, and capital does equate with a certain kind of freedom, especially if you can start to generate capital on your own.”

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“I think we need to remember...that a lot of energy was put into changing things to get us to the point where we are now. But being where we are now doesn't mean that we don't have to put in the same kind of energy to get us to a place where we ought to be.”

Thinking Needs Kind Mean Remember Energy Ought

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“Black painters have done all kinds of work. It's the treatment of forms they engage in-that's what determines the value of the work, not whether you call them a black artist or not.”

Kind Art Done Form Artist Values Black Painting Determine All Kinds Painter African American Treatment Working It

Author:Kerry James Marshall

“I tend to think having that extreme of color, that kind of black, is amazingly beautiful...and powerful. What I was thinking to do with my image was to reclaim the image of blackness as an emblem of power.”

Thinking Kind Beautiful Black Powerful Power Color Extremes Imagery Blackness Famous Artist Emblems Black Is Beautiful

Author:Kerry James Marshall

About the Author

Born: October 17, 1955
Known for: Artist
Quotes: 48

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