Untitled 1984

This untitled piece by Keith Haring, it’s probably acrylic on canvas, buzzes with hot pink, blue, and black, and I can just imagine Haring bopping away to some music while he made it, right? I reckon he began with that field of pink, maybe straight from the can, and then let the squiggles and figures start to dance. It’s like he’s channeling something, a collective unconscious of urban life, with those cartoonish figures tumbling over each other. Those little blue dashes feel like some kind of energy field. Haring was so prolific, but there's this raw, urgent feel to his work. I wonder if he was thinking about Dubuffet, or even cave paintings, when he made this? You know, we artists are all magpies, stealing and borrowing from each other across time. I can see a bit of Haring in my own work, too - that desire to just let it rip. It reminds me that painting is about feeling your way through, embracing the mess, and hoping something true comes out on the other side.