Ellen Gallagher's large-scale works use repetitive forms and both common and unorthodox materials to create subtly layered surfaces. Her elaborate and labor-intensive method of building figures and forms presents loaded imagery—often uncomfortable racial signifiers—in ways that disrupt predictable readings. In Untitled Gallagher built up patterns melded out of rubber to articulate what she refers to as a fantasy rendering of an African, delineated by a system of elegant yet abbreviated signs indicating hair, skin, tattoos, and jewelry.