Once Upon a Time There Was a Black That Did Not Want to Be Black but Red 1973

Mladen Stilinovic made this work on paper with ink and watercolour, sometime before he died in 2016. I'm immediately drawn to the tension between the fluidity of the watercolour and the directness of the text. It's so immediate. The way the red ink bleeds into the paper, it's almost like the colour itself is fighting to escape the boundaries. The little black dot, hanging below the red one like it's on a string, it reminds me of feeling trapped in a version of myself I didn't choose. Does that make sense? I see echoes of artists like Joan Miró, in the work's playful simplicity, the way it embraces the absurd. But Stilinovic's piece has this added layer of political bite, a commentary on identity and the constraints of societal expectations, it's a really human and relatable piece.