Oregon City High School walls are covered in black silhouette cutouts representing Kara Walker’s art style and how the students’ view life in the halls

Kara Walker is an artist who was raised in Stockton, California and then moved in 1982 to Atlanta, Georgia. As a young black girl, she had to deal with violent racism throughout her teenage years. A lot of her art work is a gory reflection of racism, slavery, sexism, and sexual violence from her entire life.

Mr. Liebriecht said, “it is important to have a project inspired around current living artists to add diversity from other artists”.

Kara Walker took her past experiences with racism, slavery, and sexual violence to show stories of power and the outcome of each of these experiences. At Oregon City High School in Liebrecht’s class, the students learned about Kara Walker and the meaning behind her artwork so they can think of their own experiences in the halls of their school.

Sophomore, Zoey Byer said, “Kara Walker’s art was very gory, and almost felt explicit, but it was the truth of the history that was shown through black cut-outs”

Artwork in the School

Looking at the artwork in the halls, each different figure you can see the students’ own thoughts when they walk through the halls. Liebrecht is able to look at all the different years with different people’s stories with meaning behind them, some figures can leave a big impact on Liebrecht and the project.

“A very personal example of the Kara Walker project is when a student made two people, a boy was giving flowers to a girl,” Liebriecht said.”The artist then taped it onto the wall, brought her to it and did his prom-posal”.

Liebrecht’s students have a lot of fun during this project because of the amount of personal meaning you can bring to the table. Stories the students cut out can be simple and easy, or can bring a fond memory from their favorite class. Sophomore London Shrout did an easy, but meaningful project of a small kid kicking a ball.

Shrout said, “Me and my partner did this project to show the growth of oneself from playing a sport for a long time and how they have grown with sports.”

Outside Perspective

A lot of students love to look at all the figures around the halls and wonder about the logic behind each different piece. Some figures show teenage love stories, students throwing away cans and trash, students supporting basketball, or having pioneer spirit.

“All the black silhouettes around the school really grabs my eyes,” Junior, Ryleih Cantu said. “It makes me wonder what the message behind it holds and if I’ll ever know the meaning of the silhouette.”