Go Dodgers (Side A) 2017

David Michael Hinnebusch made "Go Dodgers (Side A)" with paint, and well, it's a trip! The colors are like a slightly off-kilter rainbow, right? There's this raw energy, you can feel him pushing the paint around. Look at the baseball cap, how the word 'Dodgers' is smudged and almost dissolving. I think about how baseball, for some people, is like a religion. Hinnebusch is playing with this idea, kind of reverent but also cheeky. The surface has all this thick impasto, like he's sculpting with the paint itself. But then, he lets these washes of color drip down – these happy accidents make the whole thing come alive! Take the area around her neck, see how the brushstrokes are loose and gestural? It gives her a vulnerability that the hard lines and the attitude in her eyes try to cover up. It reminds me of some of Elizabeth Peyton's scrappy paintings, a kindred spirit. Ultimately, Hinnebusch's work reminds me that painting is an embrace of the imperfect. There's no one way to read it, and that's the beauty of it.