Three Friends 1945

William H. Johnson has painted these three friends with flat planes of color, confidently blocking in the figures. It makes me think about the act of painting, how the artist must have carefully considered how the shapes come together, shifting and emerging, like a puzzle slowly fitting into place. I love imagining Johnson at work, maybe he started with a sketch, or maybe he went straight in with the paint, improvising as he went along. The paint looks pretty thin, so I'm guessing he built it up in layers, allowing each color to sit just so. I'm drawn to the eyes of the figures. They're simple shapes, but they convey so much personality, and so much connection between these three friends. They share a glance, an understanding, a history. Johnson’s use of bold colors and simplified forms reminds me of other painters who were exploring new ways of seeing, and also connects him to a longer history of artists using painting as a form of embodied expression. Artists are always in conversation, right? Always inspiring each other to see the world in new ways.