KERRY JAMES MARSHALL.

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Kerry James Marshall, Terrie Sultan, Arthur Jafa Abrams Publishing, November 2000, $29.95, ISBN 0-810-93527-9

When you stand before a Kerry James Marshall painting, with or without previous knowledge of the history of painting in Europe or the United States, you come away confident that you have experienced a masterpiece. Each painting is an epic containing the essential elements that make any work of art (a novel, poem, movie or musical composition) beautiful and grand. Marshall builds his paintings around sublime concepts like passion, heroicism, life and death. Coupled with his rigorous study of the techniques and workmanship of Michaelangelo, Raphael, Rembrant and Charles White, Marshall has created irresistibly beautiful paintings that explore the social and cultural issues that shape the lives of African Americans.

What motivates Marshall to work in a medium (painting) that many have long declared to be dead, and in a genre (representation) that is often marginalized? "I always wanted to do pictures with black people in them ... where you recognized who the figures were, and then quickly went beyond that to much larger issues that implicated more than just the people presented," But just how does he do this? His explanations of his own artistic process are invaluable to artists and art lovers alike. "It's the way color is handled with subtly and sophistication; it's the way surface is handled with facility, the deftness of the structure; it's the way balance is achieved a dynamic equilibrium between tension and chaos. It's a choreography," says Marshall.

This vibrantly illustrated monograph of over 100 drawings, paintings, collages and text by the artist on his development takes the reader into the studio with Kerry James Marshall as he creates poignant and monumental works that skillfully integrate politics, culture and history.