Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher’s paintings, drawings, collages, and films are a reflection of her interest in the formulation of stereotypes and the abstract language used to define taboo history. Her work extracts images from ephemera including magazines, journals, and advertisements to disclose ways in which African Americans and women were targeted and pigeonholed throughout history. Using found materials that are then erased, collaged, stained, and punctured, Gallagher addresses the ways in which her historical subjects might not be too far from the present. She often uses grids and other Minimalist structures as a form within which to inject more personal observations related to race, gender, and history. Controversial subjects including the vaudeville tradition of the black female minstrel and science-fiction aimed at African American readers have populated her work, abstracting imagery in a hopes of un-knowing their function.

Gallagher has exhibited at a number of institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, Yerba Buena Arts Center, San Francisco, The Drawing Center, New York, St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri, Freud Museum, London, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Tate Modern, London, and Haus der Kunst, Munich, among many others. She participated in the 2000 Venice Biennale and was awarded the American Academy Award in Art that same year.