Furious Man 1982

Jean-Michel Basquiat made this, Furious Man, with frantic energy and bold strokes. I imagine him working fast, marks slashing across the surface, trying to catch something elusive, like a feeling or a memory. The figure practically vibrates with angst, those red and white eyes popping out from the dark head like alarms. Look at how the crisscrossing lines create a cage around the body, trapping the figure within. You can almost feel the tension, the frustration, the sheer force of expression. And yet, amidst all the chaos, there's a strange kind of harmony. The colors – that raw yellow, that almost bruised grey, that stark black – they clash but also resonate, like discordant notes in a song. Basquiat always had this way of channeling raw emotion, translating it into something visceral and immediate. It’s like he’s grabbing onto something that is always just beyond our grasp. It's this sense of the unfinished that keeps us coming back. Paintings like this remind me that art is always a conversation.