Service
2024
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bianca Walker is a 25-year-old, nonbinary painter from the Bay Area, California. They were raised surrounded by vibrant street art until gentrification began to ravage the place they once called home, leaving colored walls bare. Walker migrated to Louisiana and began their studies at Grambling State University, where they were submerged in painting and Black history. As their education continued, they quickly grew tired of traditional art methods and began to use a drip painting technique that reflects their street art roots. After developing the technique while receiving an MFA at the University of New Orleans, Walker now uses these drips as an integral part of their visual language while incorporating archival imagery of the African Diaspora.
Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2024
I drip house paint onto drop cloth to create portraits of Black people. The compositions derive from photographic material available via public libraries, universities, and other archives. My paintings and stop motion videos are portraits of labor—admiring labor as something beautiful when we are allowed to participate in it freely, as I do in my practice.”