Mask c. 20th century

This wooden mask from Michoacan, with its painted features, invites us into a world of ritual and performance. I wonder, was it carved with simple tools, each chip of wood a deliberate act? I imagine the artist carefully sculpting the face, perhaps contemplating the spirit it would embody. Those dark, swirling strokes of paint, forming the beard and hair, have a life of their own. The way the red blush creeps up the cheeks gives such a strange, almost clownish, vitality to the face. Look at the eyes. They appear wide and a little frightened. What does this have to do with other masks, with other faces? The whole thing is a conversation, isn’t it? An exchange between the maker and the wearer, between cultures, and, now, between you and me. The artist passes down their embodied imagination for us to try on for size. In painting, as in life, meaning is always in motion, never settling into one fixed point.