Basquiat at the Barbican

The energy off of Basquiat’s work is intoxicating. The exhibition was divided into different periods of the artists career. What I liked learning about his process the most was the seemingly straight forward route from inspiration to the finished product. He would sit with books open, the TV on or music whilst drawing and painting, letting words and imagery seep in from the different medias.

The works together reads like a high energy punk journal, the honest loose style, unashamedly cartoonish in it’s depiction of the world. Maybe it’s got something to do with current fashion and art trends harping back to the 80’s at the moment, but the work seems like it could have been created this year.

What I want to take into my work is the more abstract notion of the self portrait and the wide mix of paint to pencil to highlighter in a single piece of work.

I like the humour of the copyright symbol and the paired down writing, I should work on not being too embarrassed around my own language.

A PRAYER BY JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT   :