My Man 1980

Ernie Barnes made this painting, My Man, with oil on canvas, and it has these hazy, dreamy hues of brown and tan. You can almost feel the artist dabbing at the canvas, building up the figure bit by bit, loss and recovery. I wonder, did Barnes start with the hat, or the face? He’s playing with flatness and form, making the man almost a kind of icon. You know, Picasso was into that too, turning folks into symbols. Barnes renders the hat with these thick, sculptural strokes that make it seem almost like it’s protecting the man. There’s something soulful and quiet about the work. It’s like a memory, or a feeling, captured in paint. It’s cool how artists, across time and space, keep talking to each other through their work. Barnes is in that convo, adding his voice. And we get to listen in, bringing our own stuff to it. It’s never a done deal, this painting thing, and that’s the beauty of it.