Ike Ya 2016

Njideka Akunyili Crosby made this painting, Ike Ya, and you can see how she layers paint, collage, and maybe even printmaking to build a really complex surface. It's not just about the image; it's about the making. Check out the sofa, or the walls, covered with fragments of images. The texture created by this layering isn't just visual; it feels like a story being pieced together. The figures are so solid, yet they seem to emerge from this ground of memory and culture. Look at the way the blue of the man's shorts is echoed in the glass carafe on the table. These aren’t just colors; they're anchors, pulling different parts of the painting together. Njideka is in conversation with someone like Robert Rauschenberg, who was really into the way different materials could talk to each other. Her work embraces the mess, the ambiguity. It’s more like life that way, right?