Faith Ringgold

Faith is an African American artist, activist, and author. Her art ranges from paintings to sculptures to children's books. A lot of her early paintings made people uncomfortable because they portrayed the underlying racism in everyday life. In 1963 she created a group of paintings called "American People", which told the story of the civil rights movement from a female perspective. In the 1970s she created African influenced masks and sought to racially integrate the NYC art world. Ringgold also worked on a collection of paintings called "America Black". With this collection she experimented with darker colors. She realized that white western art was focused on the color white and that African cultures generally used darker colors to focus on color and create a contrast. Faith currently lives in Englewood, New Jersey and owns her own practice.