Taffy Roberts 1952

John Bratby made "Taffy Roberts" with paint, maybe oil, maybe something else, we don't know for sure, but look at the heavy strokes, the way the colors are built up, layer after layer. For Bratby, art was a conversation, a messy, tactile process of building something new from something old. The surface is all texture. Look at the way the paint clumps and drags, like it's fighting back, almost sculptural. The green, brown, and yellow are smeared and blended, creating a kind of murky harmony. Notice the confident stroke of paint that makes up the figure’s cigarette, it's small but precise, a tiny assertion of control amidst the chaos. Bratby reminds me of Auerbach, but with a grittier edge, less concerned with beauty and more interested in the raw, visceral experience of seeing and being. For Bratby, art wasn't about answers, but about embracing the beautiful mess of life.