Generations of Creative Genius 1984

Varnette Honeywood's "Generations of Creative Genius" is like a joyful collage built from color and pattern, maybe made with paper or paint, it's hard to tell! Honeywood creates a world with flat planes of color, and playful lines to create her four figures. It’s like she’s building up an image, block by block, inviting us to revel in the sheer act of making. Look at the background, each blue square filled with a slightly different shape. It’s repetitive, but not, suggesting that creation comes from a continuous process of trial and error, each iteration slightly different from the last. The artist, with her paintbrush, seems to be referencing the whole history of art-making, like a painter, a sculptor, and a musician combined. It reminds me of Stuart Davis, who also had that way of abstracting and building an image in bright color, flat shapes, and hard-edged lines. It's art as a conversation, a back-and-forth across time, where the meaning isn't fixed, but always in motion.