Confinment One 1996

This is Benny Andrews's 'Confinement One,' painted in muted browns and yellows. It looks like he was working to get something off his chest. I like to imagine Andrews layering and scraping, trying to get at something real. The figure in the painting, chained but playing, maybe singing the blues? It speaks to resilience, creativity flourishing even when things look grim. The stripes of the pants give an optical punch and I wonder if Mondrian ever wore striped pants... It makes me think about Romare Bearden, and how collage can bring different worlds together on one surface. Andrews did collage too, right? It’s all connected; painters talking to each other across time, borrowing, riffing, trying to make sense of it all. What do you think?