Bill Fan 2017

David Michael Hinnebusch's Bill Fan is a chaotic and intuitive collage painting using mixed media on board. The palette is a strange mix of melancholic blues and muddy browns, but it works. It reminds me of artmaking as a kind of archeological dig, a process of revealing and concealing. Up close, the textures are pretty wild, right? There's this fantastic tension between the smooth, almost glossy surfaces, and the rough, torn edges of the collage elements. I love the heavy black lines that define the face and eyes, they are so confident and raw. Look at how the blue paint drips down the left side of the composition – it's like the painting is actively dissolving, breaking down right before our eyes! This feels a bit like some of Basquiat's more frenetic pieces, or even Cy Twombly's scrawls, artists who were all about embracing the messiness of making. I think it speaks to the idea that art is always unfinished, always open to new interpretations.