Penny Black 1972

Peter Blake made ‘Penny Black,’ and the way he laid down those colours, it's all about the process, right? You can almost feel him figuring it out as he goes. What I love is how Blake plays with the physical stuff – that dark, almost velvety background against the model’s softer skin tones. It feels like he's building up layers, not just of paint, but of feeling. Look at how he renders the shadow under her chin, it's this delicate mix of browns and blues. It's not just a shadow, it’s like a little poem about light and dark. It reminds me a bit of Alex Katz, in that way of taking something super recognisable, a pin-up, and making it strange and new again. Art's this conversation, always building on what came before, never really settling on one answer.