Study of a Baboon 1953

Francis Bacon made this ‘Study of a Baboon’ sometime in the twentieth century with oil on canvas. Look at that strange, smudgy blue he uses for the baboon's fur, it's like he’s wrestling with the image, trying to pin it down but it keeps slipping away. It reminds me that making art is a process, an ongoing struggle, a kind of conversation with the canvas. Bacon’s surface is so physical, so present. The way he builds up layers of paint and then scrapes them back, it's like he's digging into the canvas, searching for something hidden beneath the surface. I’m drawn to that little patch of ochre and black in the foreground, those marks feel so urgent, so raw. They remind me of Giacometti, the way he used to work and rework his sculptures, always striving for something just out of reach. Ultimately, Bacon’s work is about embracing ambiguity, about accepting that there are no easy answers. And that’s what makes it so compelling.