Try on dreams until I find the one that fits me. They all fit me 2017

Amy Sherald made "Try on dreams until I find the one that fits me. They all fit me" using oil paint, and you can see it in the way the colors are laid down, kinda flat but luminous. It's like she's sifting through possibilities, not just settling for one. Looking at the surface, the skin tones are rendered in grayscale, which is so interesting against the soft purples and blues of the background and trousers, and the vibrant pop of the flowers on the hat. There's a stillness, a kind of suspended animation. I keep coming back to the hands, crossed in front of the figure. The gray skin gives this area an almost sculptural presence. I'm reminded of Barkley Hendricks, another painter who played with figure and ground, reality and artifice. It feels like Sherald is continuing that conversation, pushing it further into a space where identity is fluid, a performance, a dream we can try on for size.