Purple Haze 

Dan Graziano painted this artwork, Purple Haze, with oils. It's a contemporary work, but to really get a sense of what it is doing we need to understand the recent history of musical performance, and the venues in which it takes place. The painting's loose brushwork evokes the energetic atmosphere of a live music performance, perhaps in a small club. The title, "Purple Haze," alludes to the famous song by Jimi Hendrix, a counter-cultural icon who, in his short career, stretched the boundaries of rock music. This painting is a product of a world saturated by recorded music and mass media, where musical celebrities shape our cultural imagination. The open brushstrokes lend the image an air of spontaneity, but the musician is barely visible, melting into the 'haze' as they become an anonymous conduit for the music. To understand art, we need to understand its moment, and the social structures that give it meaning. We can use online databases, artist biographies, and critical literature to get a sense of the way artists use their imagery and the social and institutional contexts in which their art is made.