“I think of my paintings as timeless, and the works are emotional to me, like scents.”
Foregrounding Black narratives with intuitive charcoal strokes and flashes of gold.
Ferrari Sheppard paints scenes from domestic life in acrylic, charcoal and 24-karat gold leaf. Wide, rough-edged brush strokes blur figuration and abstraction, giving each canvas a sense of physical movement. In the works, Sheppard centres Black narratives. The Americana series from 2019 for example depicts 1950s America from the perspective of African-American children. Focusing on their hand-games and cultural traditions of call and response, the artist celebrates the resilience and beauty of humanity, in spite of the violence perpetrated against Black people in America at the time. In his w...
Bio
Ferrari Sheppard was born in 1983 in Chicago, and now lives and works in Los Angeles.
Education
The artist graduated from the Fine Art Institute of Chicago in 2004, where he was awarded both the Merit Award and Presidential Scholarship.
Career
Guest lectures delivered at Harvard University, Concordia University and the University of Minnesota - amongst other prominent institutions.
