Tag Archives: realism

Art

CREATIVE Artist Feature AMY SHERALD

August 4, 2026 The Silo Leave a comment

Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea (2019). Collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photo by Joseph Hyde, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, ©Amy Sherald.

Amy Sherald is a celebrated contemporary painter whose portraiture has redefined the visual language of North American realism by centering the everyday lives and experiences of Black Americans. Born in Columbus, Georgia, and now based in the New York area, Sherald is best known for her luminous, large scale paintings that combine grayscale skin tones with vibrant color to create striking, psychologically rich portraits.

Her groundbreaking practice has earned international recognition, including the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the commission to paint the official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Sherald’s work explores identity, representation, and the complexity of Black life through carefully composed images that celebrate dignity, individuality, and imagination. Her paintings have been exhibited at leading museums around the world and are held in major public and private collections, solidifying her place as one of the most influential artists of her generation.

Amy Sherald, Ecclesia (The Meeting of Inheritance and Horizons), 2024. Photo by Kelvin Bulluck, ©Amy Sherald, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.

Through portraits that invite reflection and challenge conventional narratives, Sherald continues to expand conversations about race, history, and the power of seeing oneself represented in art.

Her acclaimed mid-career retrospective, Amy Sherald: American Sublime, is currently on view at the High Museum in Atlanta through September 27, 2026. The High is the fourth and final venue for this exhibition.

For the Silo, Leatrice Ellzy President and CEO National Black Arts Festival.

Featured image- Amy Sherald with her painting A God Blessed Land at her SFMOMA solo show “American Sublime.” Photo by Kelvin Bulluck, courtesy of SFMOMA.

Call & Response

I can’t believe a year has come and gone.

On July 1 of last year, I returned to Atlanta to lead the National Black Arts Festival. It was a significant homecoming, not only because I would be leading one of the nation’s iconic Black cultural institutions, but because NBAF is where my professional journey in Black arts and culture began. Like my first season directing the organization’s artistic programming in 2005-2006, this past year has been one of the most challenging, rewarding, and inspiring of my career.

When I accepted this role, I set three goals for the next decade: build a sustainable organization with a thoughtful succession plan, secure a permanent home for NBAF, and bring back the summer festival. Those goals remain, but over the past year they have evolved into something even greater.

Over the last twelve months, we’ve focused on strengthening the foundation of NBAF, and that work continues. We’ve reinforced our infrastructure, renewed relationships with funders, community leaders, longtime supporters, local and national artists, and colleagues across the cultural sector. We’ve reorganized our team and spent countless hours listening, learning, and imagining what this institution can and should become.

While we are very present in the realities of today, we are equally focused on building an institution that will outlive us all. One that preserves Black cultural memory, invests in artists, and creates opportunities for young people. One that convenes courageous conversations and interrogates culture. One that strengthens communities and ensures Black art and culture continue to shape the future rather than simply respond to it.

Quite frankly, this work has never been more important.

Let’s name what many of us already know. We are living through a moment in which Black history, Black institutions, and Black culture have become political. Federal support for the arts has been reduced. Organizations across the country are losing funding. For institutions like NBAF, even having the word Black in our name has become a barrier in rooms where it once represented an opportunity. That reality should concern all of us.

Culture has always been one of the first places where societies negotiate who belongs, whose stories matter, and who gets to author the future. We remain deeply grateful to the foundations, corporations, and individual donors who support us. Their investment in cultural continuity and in institutions that safeguard our collective memory are shaping the future.

The months between now and the end of the year will be pivotal. The support we receive will determine the pace in which we build the infrastructure our mission requires and how boldly we move toward the next chapter of NBAF. As we prepare for the return of our summer festival, every investment made today strengthens our ability to serve artists, audiences, and communities tomorrow.

If you’ve ever wondered how you can make a difference, this is your moment. Visit nbaf.org to make a gift, join the Collector’s Guild, purchase your ticket to Fall For Brunch, explore sponsorship opportunities for the return of the 2027 National Black Arts Festival or become a Volunteer.

Thank you for believing in this work. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for investing in an institution that exists to preserve our cultural memory, amplify Black creativity, and ensure that Black narratives continue to be authored by Black voices.

Sincerely,

Leatrice Ellzy, President & CEO
National Black Arts Festival

Reviews

Three Thousand Dollar Cartridge Reveals All That Vinyl Records Offer

June 23, 2022 The Silo Leave a comment

Audio-Technica Introduces Its ART Series AT-ART20 High-End Phono Cartridge

STOW, OH, June, 2022 — Audio-Technica recently reached out to The Silo and announced the introduction of its AT-ART20 Dual Moving Coil Stereo Cartridge, the latest in A-T’s ART Series of high-end phono cartridges. The AT-ART20 utilizes Audio-Technica’s magnetic-core design to achieve extraordinary musical realism. Complementing its superlative vinyl playback performance, the AT-ART20 has a striking, distinctive contoured appearance.

“Our goal in creating the new AT-ART20 was to capture the full expressiveness of the original recording,” said Bob Peet, Audio-Technica Global Product Manager – Analog Products. “

To that end, the AT-ART20 embodies technologies and know-how that are the result of our 60 years of experience in phono cartridge design and manufacturing.”

The AT-ART20 (SRP: US$2,900 / CAD$3,760) delivers expansive, detailed sound with unmatched imaging and dynamics. The AT-ART20 utilizes the advanced manufacturing and polishing techniques that have been developed in the eyeglass industry of Sabae City in Japan’s Fukui Prefecture. The cartridge’s body features graceful curves with a flowing, organic design that has never been previously achieved. The body is made of precision-machined titanium combined with an aluminum cartridge base and an elastomer under cover, a selection of materials that provides significant resonance reduction along with lower mass. The cartridge body has threaded mounting holes to facilitate installation.

The AT-ART20 features dual moving coils aligned in an inverted “V” shape which provides optimal channel separation for superior stereo imaging and wide dynamics. The front yoke of the magnetic circuit is 0.6 mm thicker than previous designs, to improve magnetic flux density and increase the output efficiency by more than 15 percent to 0.55 mV.

The cartridge employs a nude special line-contact stylus with a solid boron cantilever just 0.011 inches (0.28 mm) in diameter, to extract a remarkable amount of information from the record groove. The boron cantilever is connected to the armature utilizing a stepped-pipe construction, which provides increased rigidity and improved strength with decreased resonance for a purer audio signal with clearer, more detailed sound.

The AT-ART20’s tip reinforcement plate is made of titanium, which reduces overall mass and improves the cartridge’s high-frequency performance, which extends to 50,000 Hz.

The Audio-Technica AT-ART20 Dual Moving Coil Stereo Cartridge is now available. Contact us on where and how to place your order.

Art

20th Century Masters: Picasso’s Guernica

April 27, 2022 The Silo 2 Comments

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth” –Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) was one of the most well-known artists of the 20^th century. Throughout his long and prolific career, Picasso both innovated and participated in important artistic movements such as realism, cubism and surrealism. In comparison to Vincent van Gogh, the infamous starving artist, Picasso was one of the first modern artists to achieve great wealth and celebrity in his lifetime.

Possibly the most important work that Picasso produced was Guernica (1937).

This large scale black and white mural (approximately 12 x 26 feet), was commissioned for the Spanish Pavilion in the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris and was completed by Picasso in under a month. In it, the artist depicted a catastrophic incident from the Spanish Civil War, wherein the Nazis conducted carpet bombing experiments on the town of Guernica, in the Basque region of Spain.

Historically, Spain had been ruled by a monarchy up until the 1930s, at which time it was replaced by a republican government that promised social and economic reform and a redistribution of goods and land. Spanish conservatives disliked this idea and headed by General Francisco Franco, they launched an insurrection that led to the Spanish Civil War. Aided by the Fascists and Nazis, General Franco assumed dictatorship of the country and ruled until his death in 1975.

During this time of turmoil, Picasso was not in Spain but working in Paris.

This is important to note when considering his choice of palette. He would have been paying attention to the events taking place in his native country largely through newspapers, transforming the black and white newsreel into a large scale canvas. Also, by choosing a dichromatic colour scheme, Picasso allowed the subject matter to stand out over colour.

Prominently positioned in this work is the Minotaur (a half-bull/half-man monster), an important symbol for Spanish people representing the tyranny of General Franco and his Nazi and Fascist supporters. Picasso used distortion in the imagery and figures to portray the horrors and suffering of innocent civilians massacred by the carpet bombing. This, in combination with the palette, evokes in the viewer the sensation of a stark nightmare, tying the work to the surrealist movement.

On a final note, Picasso was adamant that this work not be displayed in Spain until democracy was restored.

On loan to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Guernica was returned to Spain in 1981. For the Silo, Eve Yantha.