MCRST, 1962 – 2011 2011

This image presents a sea of skulls in reds, pinks, oranges, yellows, whites and blacks - I can imagine Takashi Murakami building up the layers of paint. Each skull seems to vie for attention. The artist is in conversation with the history of painting; from the vanitas tradition of art, to pop art. There's this skull, for example, that has a ring of pink and white around it. You can almost see the brushstrokes, how the painter worked with the shapes, pushing and pulling the paint across the surface. I can imagine the artist thinking about the surface as a kind of field, and how each mark relates to the others, how the colours interact and clash or sing together. It feels like they are inviting us to participate in a world that is both playful and maybe even a bit macabre? It reminds me that we, as artists, are all just riffing off each other, stealing and borrowing, remixing and reimagining what came before.