In the mood 1961

George Pemba painted this with oils, sometime during his career. The color palette is earthy, dusky even, as if we are seeing the scene as it is recalled from memory. Pemba's mark-making feels so intuitive, like he's improvising a painting, one note after another. There's a passage near the top with the trumpet player's hands which seems to be the key to unlocking the piece. Look closely and you can see the way the paint has been laid on in separate strokes to build form. It's a layering of color over color that creates a sense of depth. The musician is positioned in the very centre of the composition, with all of the other instrumental elements orbiting around him. Pemba's process shares some kind of a sensibility with Stuart Davis, especially in the way he breaks the picture plane down into planes. Like a jazz riff, Pemba riffs on an image and makes it his own. In the end, it's all about that sense of play, and of letting the music, or the painting, take you where it wants to go.