Blue Velvet 2016

This is Blue Velvet, by Takashi Murakami, and it looks like it was made with silk screen print. I love the combination of the flat, almost graphic quality of the flowers against that textured background! The textures play with your perception. The flowers look really tight and machine-made, but then there's this super-casual, almost careless signature in the corner. You think: maybe this wasn't so mass-produced after all. I'm drawn to the flower right in the middle. It's got this off-white face and this acid-green mouth, and those bright blue petals. It’s a simple shape, but the colour combinations are so jarring and odd. You get the feeling that each of these flowers could be seen as individuals. The way Murakami uses colour is interesting when you compare him to someone like Warhol, who also explored pop-art. I see an ongoing exchange of ideas across time. Art embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations.