Sir Johns 2021

Cornelius Annor painted ‘Sir Johns’ with oil on canvas sometime around now, and the colours, while restrained, almost vibrate. There's something about the texture of the wall behind the figure that really grabs me; it's like Annor built it up with layers and layers, almost like a collage, before painting over it. You can sense him building, scraping, and building again. The overall impression is one of depth and history, as if the walls themselves have stories to tell. I love how he picked out the details in the patterned jacket. Annor lets some parts of the image sit in the background while bringing others forward with a kind of glorious attention. It makes me think of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, who similarly uses a restricted palette to make paintings that are somehow both intimate and monumental. Ultimately, painting is about seeing what’s there, and then showing it to the rest of us.