The Witch 1981

This is Andy Warhol’s ‘The Witch’. I imagine him silkscreening it, layering the colors one by one. That lavender background feels like a stage, doesn’t it? And then BAM! We get this screaming green face, all outlined in black like a comic book villain. What’s she yelling about? Did someone steal her broom? It's Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, but Warhol is interested in her celebrity image and the idea of archetypes and personas. I bet Andy was thinking about the way we build up characters in our heads, and how surface and repetition can create depth, or maybe just more surface. The red outline is so sharp and deliberate, like a dare. It connects to his wider interest in celebrity, death, and American myths. Ultimately, it is a conversation between Judy Garland, the film, Warhol and all of us. It embraces the tension between surface and depth, inviting us to bring our own stories to the stage.