Sitting Man with Pink Face, New Guinea 1970

Irving Penn made this gelatin silver print, Sitting Man with Pink Face, in New Guinea. Penn’s portrait is an incredible dance between texture and tone. Look at the way the light plays on the feathers, almost like liquid. The subtle gradations of gray and the velvety blacks create a surface that’s both rich and delicate. It’s a process of layering light and shadow. There’s a crack running down the man’s face, painted on but it also looks like a geological fault line. It reminds me of those minimalist sculptures by Jackie Winsor, where simple forms are built up layer by layer, full of raw, elemental power. Think of Brancusi too, and his pursuit of essential forms. Penn is doing something similar here, stripping away the excess to reveal the underlying structure. Art is like a conversation, and we’re all just chiming in with our own voices.