Ebony Tarzan 1972

Peter Blake made this piece, Ebony Tarzan, with paint and image appropriation, layering cultural icons and personal vision. It's fascinating how he navigates the space between representation and process. The dark background and the model's skin, rendered in a tonal palette, create a depth that contrasts with the flat, graphic quality of the text and colored blocks below. The paint seems thinly applied in some areas, allowing the texture of the surface to peek through, while other strokes appear more deliberate, building up the form of the figure. Look at how the light hits the model's chest; it's not just about replicating form, but about the sheer pleasure of applying paint, of seeing how colors interact and create form. Blake seems to be in conversation with artists like Andy Warhol, who also blurred the lines between high and low culture. Like Warhol, he embraces the ambiguity of images, inviting multiple interpretations and challenging our assumptions about art and representation.