Jean-Michel Basquiat

How this artist’s work relates to your own creative practice.

One of the ways in which Basquiat’s work relates to my own creative practice is in the way he uses his own heritage as a source of inspiration. Artsy notes that “Basquiat drew his subjects from his own Caribbean heritage—his father was Haitian and his mother of Puerto Rican descent—and a convergence of African-American, African, and Aztec cultural histories,” which is a conceptual facet of his body of work that is especially evident in his canvas paintings such as La Hara and Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta pictured below.

Like Basquiat, having been raised in a country that is different from my own heritage, representing specific cultural or ethnic experiences and conveying how personal identity is influenced by them plays a major role in my creative practice, because these are ideas that I can heavily identify with as well as often see reflected in my own community. 

Apart from this, I find Basquiat’s use of colour and his “scribbled” painting technique to be extremely intriguing and inspiring. I really appreciate how Basquiat creates a sense of balance in his art in using diverse palettes that maintain a relatively subdued appearance, allowing for specific lines and colours to be emphasised. Moreover, I find his gestural method of painting (as seen below in Rubber) coupled with emblematic imagery to be very free, energetic, and emotive, and is consequently a style that I would definitely like to experiment with more.

Connections you can make between the artist’s work and the framework of this class.

One of our main class keywords that connects to Basquiat’s work is “society.” I believe this word heavily identifies with Basquiat’s creative practice as one of the most prominent aspects of his works is that it is acutely political, specifically focusing on colonialism and class struggle. Several of his works explicitly provide social commentary as a tool to provoke introspection, identify with his experiences in the black community of his time, and attack power structures and systems of racism. His work Obnoxious Liberals is an example of one such work as it depicts a series of figures representing capitalism and its hapless, powerless victims. The exploited victim is held hostage by the minions of mainstream White American culture, as represented by dollar signs, cowboy hats and a “Not For Sale” sign whereas his dark skin also hints at the systematic oppression of African-Americans (jean-michel-basquiat.org (Links to an external site.)).

Another course keyword that relates to Basquiat’s practice is “self” as several of his works also provided autobiographical insight into his own tumultuous life. A quintessential work that exemplifies this is Riding With Death. This was one of Basquiat’s final paintings before he died of a heroin overdose, and one which can easily be read as representing his inner turmoil and increasing conviction that the racist, classist, and corrupt nature of America in the 1980s was visible everywhere, including in the art world (theartstory.org (Links to an external site.)). The relatively sparse composition of this painting is a significant deviation from his usual visually dense style, and features a textured brown field onto which Basquiat has depicted an African figure riding a skeleton. The pair is symbolic of nihilism or a journey towards death that is made poignant by Basquiat’s dependence upon heroin and other drugs at the time of its painting. Furthermore, the assertive positioning of the skeleton suggests instead that it is in control, perhaps dragging the rider to the far side of the frame. Coupled with the distinction in colour between the two (a white skeleton and Black rider), this couple could be read as a metaphor for the repression and destruction of African societies by colonial powers, as well as the inequalities that exist within America for people of colour. Finally, Basquiat’s style was often described as “primitive” and “naive” by critics and here he seems to be playing to the stereotype by creating an image that resembles cave paintings or later African tribal art rather than subscribing to the Western definition of figurative painting (blog.singulart.com (Links to an external site.)).

How research, reading, or writing informs their work or their process.

Being a poet as well as an artist, writing played a significant role in Basquiat’s work as demonstrated by his notebooks and over 1500 drawings. Words featured heavily in his work, with direct references to racism, slavery, the people and street scene of 1980s New York including other artists, and black historical figures, musicians and sports stars. He often also appropriated poetry, and used language as a motif to allude to specific historic and cultural meanings. Examples of his intensive use of writing can be found in drawings such as Leeches and Boxer Rebellion.

Meaningful connections between their work and the work of another artist/creative.

Both aesthetically and conceptually, I find Basquiat’s work to be very similar to that of Genesis Tramaine (@genesistramaine (Links to an external site.) on Instagram), an expressionist and urban devotional painter. Her work, like Basquiat’s, hones in on the experience of Black people in America. In her words, she is “focused on the shape and definition of the American Black Face, explaining that her subject’s exaggerated features capture the spirited emotions of the untapped, underrepresented soul of Black people through a mixture of acrylic and oil-based paintings” (ocula.com (Links to an external site.)). Stylistically, her abstract portraiture of men and women who transcend gender, race, and social structures resembles the gestural “scribbled” work of Basquiat. However, this is a given, being that she is heavily inspired by the strong mix of 1980’s urban New York graffiti – the very art scene that Basquiat pioneered and drew into his own creative practice.