Amy Sherald - Welfare Queen, 2012

Oil on canvas, 54 x 43 in cm

The work is named after the pejorative “welfare queens,” Black women—as depicted in the 1974 film Claudine and weaponized politically in the Reagan era—accused of exploiting public benefits.

Sherald depicts her subject in tiara and pearls, her purple sash and black dress against an absorbing scarlet background—the figure of what Perry calls “an embodiment of Black Southern defiant dignity.” Welfare Queen is consistent with Sherald’s aim of creating space to reimagine cultural archetypes and economic systems beyond structural racism. - artnet

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