The Family 1955

Charles Alston’s painting, The Family, is made with colours that are both muted and bold, a combination which feels very honest. Alston lays down marks with an immediacy that speaks to the process, the decisions, and indecisions of painting. Looking at the blue of the mother’s dress, I see the texture of the paint and the way it catches the light. You can almost feel the movement of the brush, the artist’s hand, across the canvas. There’s a tension between the angularity of the figures and the softness of the colours. It’s like Alston is saying something about the strength and vulnerability of family life, all at once. Take that father figure, standing behind, cropped by the frame: he feels stoic, dependable. Alston, like Romare Bearden, used colour to convey emotion and meaning, he shows us how art is as much about feeling as it is about seeing. Art isn’t about answers, it’s about opening up spaces for questions and conversations.