Number 18 1981

Jean-Michel Basquiat made this painting, Number 18, with rough, energetic marks and a very particular palette. It's like he built it up through trial and error, letting the painting shift and emerge. I can feel the guy’s presence in the work, you know? He's grabbing at something, making it up as he goes along. The white ground feels like he’s painting over something, burying something, searching for an image. The paint isn’t too thick, it's more about the rawness of the surface. See how he's scrawled the numbers in the bottom left corner? And that figure with the crown, like some kind of regal skeleton? It’s unsettling and captivating at the same time. Basquiat was definitely in conversation with other painters, like Cy Twombly or even the earlier graffiti artists in New York. But he's also doing his own thing, finding a way to express something urgent and raw. It is a reminder that painting is an exchange of ideas across time. It embraces uncertainty, and I think that's where its power lies.