Hi Five 2011

Nyoman Masriadi's painting, Hi Five, is a real conversation piece, rendered in these earthy tones, like burnt umber and a kind of bruised grey-blue, giving the whole thing a slightly melancholic vibe, despite the, you know, “hi five” gesture. I wonder about Masriadi standing in front of the canvas, maybe in his studio in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is probably thinking about the way the body can speak volumes, even when the words are so few. Look how the figures loom over a cityscape, their cartoonish features exaggerated, like a social commentary. That hand raised for a high five – is it a gesture of celebration, or something else? And the other figure, arms crossed, skeptical… “u mean?” It’s like they're stuck in a loop, this exchange that never quite connects, and then I think about Philip Guston and his own way of using cartoonish figures to talk about serious stuff. We're all just riffing off each other, trying to make sense of it all.