In Amy Sherald’s Pilgrimage of the Chameleon, 2016, a young Black man stands tall, smiling gently at the viewer. Rendered in the artist’s signature grisaille palette, her figure wears a navy peacoat with a fur collar, a neat white button-down shirt, and khaki trousers, and he holds a rainbow bunch of balloons in his right hand. The balloons against a sky blue background serve as a natural symbol of uplift, implying the upward direction of the protagonist’s pilgrimage. 

Pilgrimage of the Chameleon challenges stereotypical ideas surrounding young Black men. The professional costume of Sherald’s protagonist reminds one of respectability, the phenomenon of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries wherein Black Americans felt pressure to conform to, as journalist Aysa Gray calls it, “the systemic, institutionalized centering of whiteness,” which still impacts Black Americans today.ⁱ

 

This process of assimilation via respectability involves more than just physical appearance; as social justice writer Odochi Ibe notes, a Black person may feel obligated to change the way they speak or behave to blend in, or even to protect themselves from racist violence, and this can have a negative effect on one’s mental health.ⁱⁱ This process, called code-switching, is an exhausting performance of multiple identities based on one’s social, racial, and class context.ⁱⁱⁱ Amy Sherald remembers her mother telling her to “speak a certain way and act a certain way” on her first day at a predominantly white private school.^iv By young adulthood, Sherald had difficulty knowing who she was, “because I’d been performing my whole life.”^v This lifetime of performing drew her towards painting portraits of other Black performers. While earlier works, such as Madame Noire, 2011, present more theatrical subjects, others, such as Pilgrimage of the Chameleon, show everyday performers: performers of whiteness, of respectability.

Like Sherald, the young man in Pilgrimage of the Chameleon is a performer. He is ready to adapt his persona, like a chameleon, to whatever social situation he finds himself in. His button down and khakis are reminiscent of a private school uniform, or everyday office attire. His hairstyle is short and unremarkable, his face fresh. By means of his style and dress, the young man in Pilgrimage of the Chameleon fashions a calm, non-confrontational, upwardly-mobile persona. His rainbow balloons express a sense of optimism, a hope that these measures will reap social rewards.

 

As a child, Sherald took a pilgrimage of her own, on a school field trip to an exhibition of Bo Bartlett’s work at The Columbus Museum in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia. This childhood experience had a significant impact on the artist, which she recalls often in interviews. Seeing Bartlett’s work was the first time Sherald saw a Black person in a painting of monumental scale, and this early moment of representation had a lasting effect on her desire to paint people who looked like her.

Inspired obliquely by Bartlett’s realism, in combination with the lack of Black representation by other painters, Sherald learned to draw the human figure by copying photographs. Drawing from photography remains a fundamental aspect of her portraiture process. Once Sherald has chosen the model for a portrait, she takes hundreds of photos of them over the course of several hours. These photos are Sherald’s version of sketching, and she builds her painted portrait from this source material.^vii
"[I love] the stillness of daguerreotypes, the beauty of black skin in black and white pictures, how everything came down to what the eyes were saying. And in those photographs they are all telling stories, from the youngest child to the oldest person. When I look at images from that period, in my mind, I stand simultaneously with them in their deliberate gaze, and I understand and know that I am their future self, and dream."
—Amy Sherald  Pilgrimage of the Chameleon shows the influence of early photography on Sherald’s artistic practice. With his greyscaled skin and timeless, simple costume, it is easy to imagine the young man in a black and white photograph, back in time.

 

Sherald cites Frederick Douglass’s passion for photographs of Black people as a source of thematic inspiration for works such as Pilgrimage of the Chameleon. Douglass, as a public figure in the late 1800s, had his photograph taken often; sitting for over 160 portraits, he was the most photographed man in the 19^th century.^viii

 

Sherald explains Douglass’ motivations, saying that he sat for so many portraits “to ensure the accurate portrayal of Black Americans.” She continues: “he discovered that the photograph had the ability to redefine the often stereotypical image and narrative of Black Americans.”^ix Sherald, like Douglass, believes in the power of representation to challenge racist assumptions about Black people. Her painted portraits and Douglass’ photographs both present self-assured Black subjects, whose identities are products of their own creation. With Pilgrimage of the Chameleon, Sherald builds the legacy of representation that she wants to see in the world.

 

 

ⁱ Aysa Gray, “The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, June 4, 2019, online.
ⁱⁱ Ibe, “Playing the Game of Respectability Politics, But at What Cost?”
ⁱⁱⁱ Priscilla Frank, “’Fairytale’ Paintings Show a Side Of Black Lives History Overlooks,” The Huffington Post, July 7, 2016, online.
^iv Ibid.
^v Amy Sherald, in conversation with Russell Tovey and Robert Diament, Talk Art [podcast], September 27, 2022, 15:24.
^vi Amy Sherald, “Amy Sherald Speaks at The Columbus Museum” [video recording of lecture], September 29, 2017, online.
^vii Amy Sherald, Talk Art.
^viii “Frederick Douglass: Agitator,” American Writers Museum, accessed October 13, 2022, online. 
^ix Amy Sherald, quoted in Elaine Sexton, “Making Mirrors: A Micro-Interview with Amy Sherald,” Tulepo Quarterly, October 14, 2016, online.