Jean Michel Basquiat's Artwork

Introduction

It is said that a person's value should be judged from his work. In order to understand the depth of a person we need to understand how well he carved his thoughts and expressions in his work. Jean-Michel Basquiat, a mythical artist, rejuvenated the artwork in American history. He leaded himself through his creative and innovative artwork that not only expressed his personality but also his view of perceiving things. His artwork covers topic of individual's self to society and world.

Jean M. Basquiat was born in New York on 22 Dec 1960. Jean's incendiary career and work in art category gained popularity in 1980s era. Although his art career is specific to only eight years span of time but unprecedented in American art history (Marshall, 56). He presented himself with a multifaceted artist covering multiple aspects of life from representation of self development to society, economies, and perceptive thinking to world. His painting shows the perception of Basquiat towards seeing the world from its core (Hoban, 78). Historians are still perplexed to position him in a specific art movement and whether he was more of an Abstract-Expressionist or a Neo-Expressionist?

Analysis of Basquiat's Artwork

Critics and analyst argue that Basquiat's paintings and drawings are covered under neo-expressionist style. Basquiat used secret, coded language style to express his emotions, feelings, and perceptions. He devised the concept in an implicit way and left the interpretation of work for the viewers. Basquiat used to emphasize on the credence of words alteration to make people judge more from his art than just what appears (Ruhrberg, 103). His paintings were obscured in presentation to define a concept. Inclusive of hidden conveyance of meanings, a causal and deceptive style is evident in Basquiat paintings not only shows his personality traits but his connection to the external world. Cohesion in concepts, presentation of phenomena, and inclusion of thoughts coalesce with the implicit message every artwork of Basquiat conveys to the viewer.

Mary Boone, Anina Nosei, and many other dealers were convinced by the attention that Basquiat captured through his artwork (Ruhrberg, 128). His paintings are compared to primitive tribal drawings and to kindergarten scribbles. This comparison shows the raw innocence conveyed in paintings and tone of authenticity selected to define the perspective analogous to the primitivism of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and even those having infant mind. His paintings physical and the abstract to express theme concepts of jazz, drug abuse, mortality, and capitalism (Hoban, 81).

Theme of racial discrimination and socioeconomic inequality are more pervasive in his paintings including the degradation of life that associate with these concepts. Basquiat's addressed the concepts of post-colonialism due to his interest in making the heritage of the colonial enterprise his point of subject. This diverted the attention towards stratified societies that are enriched with concepts of differences and prestige and ignore the respect, dignity, and caring principles (Marshall, 59). Since Basquiat was an African American, this was reflected in his work also. Afro-Atlantic tradition term has been used ...