Figurehead 1935 - 1942

This "Figurehead" painting was made with watercolour by an anonymous artist. It's a fascinating dance of control and chance, especially how the artist uses thin layers of paint to give depth. You can almost feel the hand of the artist guiding the brush, yet there's an openness to how the colours blend and bleed. Up close, the textures in the garment are something else. See how the watercolour trickles and pools, creating unexpected patterns? There's a real sense of the medium's physicality, like the artist is letting the water do its thing, and in the process is capturing something essential and free. I love how this little passage captures a wider tension in the piece between the structured and the fluid. There's something about the way this anonymous painter works that reminds me of the outsider artist, Bill Traylor, a sense of directness, and a real engagement with materials and the process of artmaking.