“The shadow is both a part of our identity and apart from it. It is our counterpart and sometimes the truer part.”
—Samantha Wall, 2021
Flayed is a drawing from Samantha Wall’s series titled, Shame on Me, hauntingly rendered as a self-portrait silhouette and shadow. Though much of the figure’s details are unknown, Wall beautifully captures the subtlety where light only just reveals contours of the face, strands of hair, the definition of raised shoulders, and collar bones, as a chronicling of emotions that the body holds. Using conté crayon, charcoal, and graphite, Wall builds up her drawing from light to dark. In this series, Wall states that the “introspective emotions such as shame, humiliation, and pride provide opportunities of self-reflection that have the potential to expose these internal mechanisms.” In this realm of self-awareness, Wall brings out for us what is often an internal struggle.
—Grace Kook-Anderson, The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art
Samantha Wall (American, born Korea, 1977), Flayed 2011, Conté crayon, charcoal, and graphite on paper. Museum Purchase: Funds provided by The Ford Family Foundation and the Northwest Art Purchase Fund, 2016.35.1
