Amy Sherald’s Everyday Vision of “The Great American Fact”

The intensity of color is inevitably one’s first impression of a painting by Amy Sherald. Based on photographs the artist takes of strangers who catch her eye, canvases like A Bucketful of Treasure (Papa Gave Me Sunshine to Put in My Pockets…) foreground those unique personalities by setting the figures against a field of saturated color. Given the artist’s preference for large formats—one work in the exhibition measures nearly 11 by 9 feet—the spectator is immediately enveloped in color, just as the depicted subject is swathed in the pattern of the clothing Sherald specifically chooses to highlight their individuality. In a recent conversation with the press organized to open her current show “The Great American Fact” at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, Sherald described her “search for the colors that are between the ones we already know.” The results recall Matisse for their reveling in color’s infinite variety and ability to transport. Color also strategically disarms in a Sherald. Her insistence…