Impressioni d'Africa 1997

Enrico Baj made this party of characters, Impressioni d'Africa, with some kind of crayon or maybe oil pastel on paper. It’s a pretty dense scene, and what looks like a cobalt blue field really sets off the figures. I get the feeling Baj started out with one guy, then another, and pretty soon a whole cast emerged. There’s a monster mash of eyes, teeth, and masks—he’s riffing on African masks and who knows what else? I imagine he's working in a space of constant invention and reinvention, where each mark builds upon the last. I'm reminded a bit of Dubuffet’s art brut, but there’s also something else here. You get the sense Baj is interested in the interplay between representation and abstraction, and how these modes of seeing can coexist within a single frame. Ultimately painting is a conversation, right? I mean, it’s a way of talking to other artists, living or dead.