Leaping Children 1968

Charles Blackman made Leaping Children using oil paint, and the way he’s put it down, it’s almost like he’s sketching with paint, trying to grab a feeling more than make a perfect picture. Look at how the dark green background feels both flat and deep, pushing the kids forward but also trapping them. The colours are bold – reds, blues, yellows – not mixed into each other so much as placed next to each other, like in that girl’s dress on the left. See those little flower shapes? They're not trying to be real flowers, they're more like bursts of energy, or maybe a memory of a dress. Then there’s the awkwardness of the bodies, the way they’re all tangled up, it's like Blackman's showing us how messy and complicated being a kid can feel. It reminds me a bit of Paula Rego, how she uses figures to tell stories that are both sweet and a little bit scary, and I think that tension, that not-knowing, is what makes the painting so alive.