I Did it Steinway 1998

Mark Kostabi made "I Did It Steinway" in 1998, using, what looks like, an airbrush to apply the paint. There's a smoothness to the gradations between colours, the planes rendered in blacks, blues and reds. I love the way Kostabi uses this method to show, rather than conceal, the making of the painting. The figure here is a study in contrasts, it's faceless, sitting hunched, and chained at the ankle to a heavy weight. The chains are rendered with an almost classical smoothness and detail. But the stool is made of these blocky shapes. The piano too, is angular and simplified. It makes me think of early Philip Guston, or maybe even some de Chirico. I am moved by the tension between the figure's constraint and the exuberance of colour and tone. It's art making as a form of both expression, and maybe, even, escape.