“I chose to use the grayscale instead of brown skin. I think that it offers the viewer an opportunity to pause and consider something else before we get to that,” says artist Amy Sherald. At first, she says, she simply liked the way the gray looked. It reminded her of old family photographs she grew up with. Then it became a way for her to paint Black Americans, but not make their brown skin the first thing that people noticed. “I can't take Blackness away from them. But the lack of color allows for a different entry point,” she says.#amysherald #painter #blackamericans #grayscale #painting