Ellen Gallagher is no stranger to creating large-scale works of art.

This version of Untitled (she has a number of different works called Untitled) measures in at an impressive ten by eight feet in size. Untitled is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, as is another, much brighter, work by her, Watery Ecstatic. Untitled is very dark due to Gallagher’s use of rubber as one of her main materials, which she uses in all of her black paintings, along with paper and enamel paint.

The image itself, which can be a bit difficult to see at first, becomes clearer the longer one looks at it, especially from a distance. However, one needs to look a little closer to see the details; we can see the back of a person’s head with a Mohawk hairstyle, some jewelry, and tattoos. This painting may have been a part of a series that she began in 1998: black, monochromatic paintings that also used mixed media, and were a “direct response to the critical interpretations of her previous works.” Her previous work includes collages, some of which contained imagery of 19^th-century minstrel shows, such as the exaggerated wide eyes and lips commonly found in blackface.

Minstrel shows gained popularity beginning in the early 19^th century, peaking by the 1850s, and falling into decline by the turn of the 20^th century. These shows were blatantly racist by nature, as they featured mostly white performers wearing blackface makeup, while mocking and caricaturing black people through skits, songs, and dance. There were also several performing minstrel acts that were comprised of black singers, dancers and actors. A (white) group called Haverly's European Mastodon Minstrels even performed at the inauguration of President James A. Garfield in 1881.

Gallagher counts the painter Agnes Martin, as well as the writings of Gertrude Stein, among some of her artistic influences. She often references race in her work, sometimes explicitly and sometimes subtly, and Untitled is no exception, as the person in the painting is African-American. Gallagher herself has biracial heritage, with her father’s roots in Cape Verde, and her mother’s in Ireland.

Ellen Gallagher refers to the person depicted in Untitled as a “fantasy” version of an African, and also describes the work as "a kind of refusal." In regards to the “black paintings,” which likely include this one, Gallagher herself sums this up pretty well: “Even when reading them - if you stand in front of them, they go blank and then if you stand at the side you see only a little.” As author Rosie Lesso describes, "The shiny veneer of these paintings is intentionally evasive and slippery, as she plays with the cultural denial or glossing over of racist stereotypes that still prevail today."