Lezley Saar

Lezley Saar moves between painting, drawing, photography, fabric banners, collages, and installations in her practice. All of these components operate within the distinct vein of Magical Realism that Saar has developed within her oeuvre since the late 1980s. Blending realist imagery with motifs of the supernatural or fragments of folklore, Saar’s pieces evocatively meditate on the intersections of race, gender, ancestry, sexuality and spirituality. The women in her paintings could have been plucked from the pages of Toni Morrison’s novels, or the Afro-Surrealist poetry of Suzanne Césaire. Appearing as omniscient ghosts or spirits, each figure is laced with ancestral weight. Bones, butterflies, snakes, or antlers form regal headpieces for these figures while their eyes pierce knowingly at audiences. Simultaneously drawing out dark histories and the resonant beauty of these women, Saar plays with the tropes of American Gothic to depict enrapturing, otherworldly figures who share stories often left untold.