User:Mutha marley/sandbox

Larry Walker
Larry Walker (born 1935) is an American visual artist and professor emeritus of art. He often uses mixed media collages that represent "urban surfaces" to discuss existential truths and social injustice. Walker currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia and has taught extensively at University of the Pacific and Georgia State University. He is also the father to acclaimed visual artist, Kara Walker.

Early life
Walker was born in Franklin, Georgia, in 1935. In 1941, several years after his father's passing, Walker's family moved to Harlem where he was inspired by the urban life buzzing around him. Walker mentions people-watching from his apartment building's sixth story fire escape, experiences taking the train as a southerner in a large city, and his 145th street community as some of his major inspirations behind his work.

Career
Walker graduated from the High School of Music & Art (now Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School), and relocated to Detroit to attend Wayne State University, where he received both his B.S. in Art Education and M.A. in Drawing and Painting. In 1964, Walker began teaching at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California where he was a professor and later made chair of the art department. In 1983 he and his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia and he took a position as a professor and director of the art program at Georgia State University, where he taught until his retirement in 2000.

Artwork
With an artistic career spanning the past six decades, Walker explores existential questions (and answers), social issues, and cultural imagery as they would be found on the walls and doors of urban environments, indicative of the images he saw throughout his childhood in Harlem. Walker describes the conversation his work sparks as “pseudo-reality, socio-cultural, and humanistic”. While a portion of his works are rendered with charcoal on paper, Walker’s mixed media collages provide additional context to his dialogue, featuring magazine and newspaper clippings, partial promotional posters for movies and events, and other symbolic elements such as chains and shackles, earphones, and microphones. His references to pop culture and current events maintain an authentic relevance within his work. Walker envisions urban surfaces as an interaction that occurs within a shared, common experience. He recreates a variety of realities and narratives found upon the metropolitan message boards of cities around the world that serve as a representation of human life. He has works that are apart of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia's permanent collection.

Personal Life
Larry Walker has been married to his wife, Gwen, since 1958. They have three children together; Dana, Larry Jr., and Kara He currently lives and works from his home studio in Lithonia, Georgia.