Masks 1938

James Ensor seems to have made this painting with oil on canvas. Look at the way he layers the colours. You can feel that painting for him was a real process. There’s something disturbing about all these masked figures. The paint is applied quite thinly, almost transparently in places. You can see the weave of the canvas coming through. But that doesn’t make it feel light. It’s like the colours are fighting each other, all these pinks, blues and greens, creating this really uneasy feeling. Take a look at the figure right in the front with the blue face. There’s something about the way the paint is scrubbed on, that gives the face a really raw, almost wounded quality. It makes you think about what these masks are hiding. I can see a connection with the work of someone like Philip Guston, who also uses colour and figuration in a really jarring and confrontational way. I like that Ensor leaves the work open to interpretation. It’s not about answers, it’s about questions, about feeling your way through the ambiguity.