Saturday Night 1968

Clementine Hunter made this world on canvas, called "Saturday Night," with oil paint. The figures are built up of bold daubs of colour, arranged in simple forms with very little blending. Look at the little red house that dominates the centre of the composition. You can really feel the texture and the almost crude handling of the brush. The shapes and the colours feel very direct and intentional. The black roof, the vibrant red of the walls, the way the figures are frozen in place. Even the sky is painted a vivid minty green, with clouds depicted as elongated smudges of black and white. I'm reminded of Bill Traylor's simplified forms and flattened perspective. Both of them were driven by a need to document their surroundings with a clarity and a directness that is really compelling. In the end, it's the simplicity that allows us to enter Hunter's world.