I’ve always had a deep love for art that dripped with symbolism. Art that encodes stories within their frame or form, all while being aesthetically appealing, draws you into a dialogue with the artist and your fellow viewer. It’s a bit like an inside joke; if you know, you know—and it certainly feels good to know.

Ferrari Sheppard’s new show “Heroines of Innocence” at Wilding Cran draws you into a world steeped in reverential references. With a style that floats somewhere between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Willem de Kooning (perhaps with a bit of Cy Twombly thrown in), Sheppard creates work that are entirely his own. His pieces possess a certain freedom in their unhemmed, charcoal lines that compose the anonymized Black women and girls.

But unlike other anonymized subjects, such as Ramiro Gomez’s essential workers, their anonymity is not to generalize them, but to guard them. The figures in Sheppard’s paintings are kept apart from this world through their anonymity. Kept apart from this world which has systematically oppressed people of color—Black women in particular. Moreover, by omitting any recognizable features, Sheppard invites us to inspect the figures simply as they exist.

Bond (2020), an intimate portrait of a mother embracing her child, is particularly eye-catching. The mother, a rough confluence of charcoal and acrylic, is almost entirely obscured by the golden child sitting on her lap. This piece has a strong religious overtone, with the use of gold leaf to highlight the “Radiant Child” metaphor. But with its back turned to us, it’s shown that the baby is a precious gem that does not belong to us and, moreover, is unconcerned with our presence.

Gold leaf is used in the show to fantastic ends, adding a religious iconographical effect throughout many of the pieces. Scribes (Study II) (2020), for example, used a large sheet of unbroken gold leaf to frame the two central children sharing a book, accentuating them and catching the light brilliantly.

Heroines of Innocence is available to be revered at Wilding Cran Gallery until October 31st.

Wilding Cran Gallery
1700 S Santa Fe Ave #460
Los Angeles, CA 90021
Show runs through Oct 31st
Appointment Only — No Walk-Ins