Artists have a variety of methods to make their mark. Every Friday we will share a photograph of an #ArtistInAction. . Ellen Gallagher (b. 1965) is an American artist who challenges the abstraction and figuration dichotomy by using minimalistic techniques to deconstruct the insidious racial stereotypes and narratives present in our visual culture. Gallagher’s film, collage, drawings, and paintings, are formal investigations into materiality that powerfully demean the visual narratives present in found images sourced from magazines. Using modernist techniques like staining, spilling, and other aggressive mark-making, Gallagher transforms the original content of the pictures into an unknown image. The “DeLuxe” series of collages used cutouts from beauty adverts sourced from magazines like Ebony and Sepia. The images promoted beauty products and wigs, but Gallagher’s formal interventions transform their messages into parody and subversion. “What’s seen as political in [my] work is a kind ...