bio
Sharon L. Bjyrd is best known for her vibrant portraits celebrating the beauty and diversity of the black experience. "I seek to honor the individuality of people of color and to depict the different ways we go about expressing our blackness."

Sharon was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, attending Kenwood Academy High School and Chicago Metropolitan School. After moving to Madison she attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, studying Social Work and Afro American studies and went on to work in the domestic violence field and serving women in poverty at organizations like the YWCA of Madison and the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence. ​Self-taught, with a few classes along the way, Sharon entered the art world as a second passion after a life slowdown due to Lupus and sickle cell disease created the space to re-discover her love of art in the form of painting. Her medium of choice is acrylic paint, though she sometimes creates mixed media pieces. Influenced by contemporary artists such as Kehinde Wiley and Kerry James Marshall, Sharon melds her love of African culture with colorful portraits of Afro Americans who uniquely express their blackness.

Sharon's work has been shown in the book "Let's Talk About It, The Art, The Artists and The Racial Justice Movement on Madison's State Street", at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art's Art Fair on the Square; The South Side Community Art Center, Chicago; Hatch Art House, Madison, WI and the Silver Room Block Party 100 Canvas Event in Chicago.

artist's  statement

Often only the painful, gritty, hard history of black life in America is portrayed , This creates an unconscious societal agreement that this is the one and only story of every Afro American. I seek to offer an alternative view for society by recreating the effortlessly regal and vibrant manisfestations of Afrocentrism that are underseen and which could replace the narrative of the black experience in America. My aim is to add colorful, beautiful, human faces to the collective consciousness that can be called upon when thinking about black lives and our place in America today. My work celebrates the beauty of the diversity of the black experience and honors the individuality of people of color by depicting the different ways we go about expressing our blackness.

My influences are somewhat eclectic and range from Toulouse-Latrec's use of color to set a mood to Kehinde Wiley's play with brown skintones against African prints. I love the way color bounces off of brown skintones and use a highly saturated palette to highlight this. Although I work mostly with acrylic paint I also enjoy experimenting with the way paint interacts with mixed media like newsprint and wood to create more dynamic skintones and colors. My hope is to capture the vibrancy of modern Afro American life.

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