Welmon Sharlhorne | |
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Born | 1952 (age 71–72) Houma, Louisiana, U.S. |
Other names | Welman Stovall, Welmon Sharlehorne, Uncle Shadow |
Occupation | Visual artist |
Movement | Outsider art |
Welmon Sharlhorne (born 1952) is an American visual artist.[1][2] He is self-taught, and is considered an Outsider artist. Sharlhorne is a native of Houma, Louisiana, and has also lived in the French Quarter in New Orleans.[3] He is nicknamed Uncle Shadow,[4] and has gone by the name Welman Stovall.[5]
Welmon Sharlhorne was born in Houma, Louisiana, he was one of fourteen children born into an African-American family.[6] At the time of his youth, the area was under Jim Crow laws and was racially segregated.[1]
Sharlhorne has spend a significant portion of his life incarcerated and started making drawings while serving time at Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he was released in 1995.[3] His artwork from prison was often created on manila folders.[1] He uses the symbolism of clocks in much of his artwork.[3]
In 2019, Sharlhorne's work was included in the group show What Carried Us Over: Gifts from Gordon W. Bailey Collection among twenty five artists at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.[7]
Sharlhorne's work is in permanent museum collections, including the Pérez Art Museum Miami,[8] Smithsonian American Art Museum,[9] Ogden Museum of Southern Art,[10] Los Angeles County Museum of Art,[11] the African American Museum of Dallas,[12] and the High Museum of Art.[13]