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Fine art, like jazz or quantum physics, can feel out of reach for those of us without fluency in the subject. But as we all know from listening to music or watching movies, sounds, colors, and shapes invite a different way of processing the information set before us, allowing us to make new connections and respond to ideas in physical or emotional ways that words don’t always provoke.

Through mixed media, quilting, portraiture, folk art, photography, and more, the Black women scholars and artists below explore history, mythology, religion, racism, politics, and the Black female body in arresting, perspective-shifting compositions.

Published in 2011, this excellent resource guides the reader through a general history of Black American women artists, from slavery to the (almost) present. Farrington corrects the still common tendency to overlook Black women artists in academia and popular culture, making clear connections between the sociopolitical conditions of each historical period and the ways those ideas and influences manifest in different artists’ work.

Pointing out how often historical studies ignore art, Collins focuses on how visual artists across mediums — film, photography, painting, installation, mixed media — problem-solve issues of Black womanhood that complicate their explorations of the past. Through the work of American artists like Alison Saar and Lorna Simpson, Collins examines how artists contend with the shifting status of the Black female body, the role of art in effecting change, and the challenges of documenting the truth of Black female experience.

This book covers both male and female artists, but it’s too new and fascinating to omit. Lauded as both memory and testimony, Black Futures collects a fascinating range of artistic responses to the relationship between history and present politics, including memes, paintings, Instagram posts, poetry, infographics, interviews, and more, to provide a dazzling, often joyful portrait of how Black artists are exploring what it means to be alive and making meaning today.

Julie Mehretu is famous for large-scale, abstract, and multilayered paintings that she calls “story maps of no location.” Using acrylics, pencil, pen, and ink, Mehretu’s paintings often pair urban architectural elements with gestures to speed, compression, and the chaos of multiple, simultaneous perspectives. This recent retrospective of her work is gorgeous and a great way to experience the immensity and ambition of her paintings in an at-home format.

Adrian Piper is a conceptual artist (installation, performance art, and photography) and philosophy professor most interested in questions of identity, especially regarding race and gender: How do I see myself? How do others see me? How do those gazes and perceptions impact my work and my ability to move between disciplines and in space? Witty and subversive, Piper’s art often pairs images with words aimed at catalyzing change. Connie Butler’s catalog of her work (1965-2016) allows the reader to follow Piper’s artistic development and provides a great introduction to the principles of conceptual art.

The daughter of artists Betye and Richard Saar, Alison Saar works primarily in sculpture, incorporating found objects as a way to explore history, multiracial identity, and heritage. This monograph features both older and recent work, as well as an interview with the artist and childhood photographs. The result is intellectual and intimate, providing the reader a more nuanced route to viewing and understanding Saar’s work.

Bisa Butler is a fiber artist who uses cut, layered, and stitched cloth to create dynamic portrait quilts inspired by family history, artifacts, and themes of community, migration, and the work of pioneering Black artists like Faith Ringgold and Romare Beardon. In Butler’s words: “My subjects are adorned with and made up of the cloth of our ancestor. If these visages are to be recreated and seen for the first time in a century, I want them to have their African Ancestry back, I want them to take their place in American History. I want the viewer to see the subjects as I see them.” Bisa Butler: Portraits is the first volume to collect and explore this important artist’s work.

Editor’s note: This title is currently on backorder.

Beyond the Black Atlantic is an excellent way to acquaint yourself with Tschabalala Self, an incredible young artist who uses a large-scale, canvas-based mixed media approach to explore the Black female body. The intersection of race, gender, and sexuality are central to Self’s work, which feature colorful figures, alone or in groups, often negotiating urban environments. About her work, Self writes: “I am attempting to provide alternative, and perhaps fictional explanations for the voyeuristic tendencies towards the gendered and racialized body; a body which is both exalted and abject. I aspire to hold space and create a cultural vacuum in which these bodies can exist for their own pleasure and self-realization.”

As an artist, author, educator, and activist, 90-year-old Faith Ringgold’s impact on the American art world, and leadership for Black female artists in particular, cannot be overstated. Ringgold works in many mediums but is perhaps best known for her intricate and gorgeous story quilts, which feature passionate and imaginative Black heroines. Although it’s a departure from the monographs and catalogs in this list, a fun way to explore several facets of Ringgold’s career and interests is by reading her 1991 award-winning children’s book, Tar Beach, in which eight-year-old Cassie flies above her “tar beach” rooftop in 1930s Harlem, imagining the freedom to go anywhere and do as she pleases.

This gorgeous (and enormous) volume collects more than 700 of Kara Walker’s works and notes, many appearing in print for the first time. One of the youngest-ever recipients of the MacArthur “Genius Award,” Walker is best known for room-length silhouette installations that explore the violent legacy of slavery. Readers wanting a deeper dive into the academic conversation around Walker’s work should check out Rebecca Peabody’s forthcoming Consuming Stories.

Photographer and video and collage artist Lorna Simpson is best known for works that combine photography with text. Like all of the artists on this list, Simpson is most interested in issues of identity — self-perception and how the body, especially the Black female body, is perceived by others in ways that stall or subvert freedom. This 2018 collection of Simpson’s collage art highlights her interest in pop culture imagery of Black beauty, specifically Black hair. With an intro by poet Elizabeth Alexander, Lorna Simpson Collages is a beautiful introduction to this fascinating artist.