Bread Fruit, Hawaii 1935

John Melville Kelly made this print called Bread Fruit, Hawaii; you can see it's all about the process of layering. Look at the way the woman and the breadfruit are handled, how the gradations in tone create a feeling of roundness and volume, or the flat, patterned treatment of the surrounding leaves. The whole image comes alive through the friction between these different modes of representation. See that mark just above the woman’s hand, a little patch of dots? For me, this small detail is so evocative: a tiny constellation, it gives an impression of texture and depth that sets off the smooth areas of the print. I'm reminded of Gauguin's prints of Tahitian life, though Kelly's color palette is more muted and his lines more sharply defined. And just like Gauguin, this work encourages us to contemplate the exchange of ideas and visual languages across different cultures.