Bald Eagle, from Endangered Species 1983

Andy Warhol made this ‘Bald Eagle’ print as part of his Endangered Species series. The approach to mark-making is so Warhol – the bold lines and flat colours scream Pop Art, don't they? You can see that artmaking is a process, there’s no attempt to disguise it. Warhol's eagle is all about surface; smooth, bright, and kind of unreal, and the bold outlines are like a coloring book, aren’t they? It’s tempting to fill them in! The texture is smooth and flat, but the color vibrates, especially that intense blue. If you look closely at the eagle’s beak, you’ll see how the simple orange shape is outlined in red – it gives it a kind of cartoonish, hyper-real quality. This piece reminds me of someone like Alex Katz in the way he uses simplified forms and bold colors, it’s like a conversation between artists across time, asking questions about what a painting can be. It’s all about embracing ambiguity, isn't it?