Jamal Roberts’ painting “Stressin” is a mixed media piece. It was viewed at the Greenville Museum of Art at 802 Evans Street, Greenville, NC. 27834. The work of Jamal Roberts is deep and emotional, with dark topics appearing in many of his works. The painting Stressin is about an artist who is stressed. It shows a world falling apart around him. The work’s title explains the work perfectly. A different treatment of the work would not necessarily have a different impact. The piece creates tension, which is the point the artist was trying to make. The painting evokes feelings of stress and tension through multiple layers upon layers of dark color and the theme of objects in the paintings coming apart.
The piece uses two basic lines to organize the work. A vertical like is created by the man and the ghost on top of his head. A horizontal line is created by the hand/brush and the back of the shark-like figure. The two major lines intersect in the lower right hand corner of the canvas. Line gives the otherwise seemingly chaotic and unordered work a focal point. The work is fragmented without the line. It would be directionless without the organizational pull of the intersecting lines right to the center of the figure’s chest.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"«Stressin» by Jamal Roberts".
It uses traditional perspective in that the central figure of the painting is larger in scale than the figures in the painting. Some of the other figures are more prominent and others are in the background, making them appear to be distant events or stresses that are on the fringes. The figures fill up the entire canvas. There is no space that is unfilled. There is a considerable amount of tonal contrast, mostly playing on the ideas of light versus dark. The painting as a whole is dark, giving it a sense of foreboding. Light is used to highlight certain figures and shapes against the dark of the work. The colors are largely in the blue tones, with reds, oranges, yellows, and whites added in to highlight the central themes of the painting.
The artist used texture in the painting to tell the story and to create a sense of falling apart. For instance, it one looks closely, the skin on the shark-like figure is cracked. The end the brush is flying apart in a manner that is similar to feathers flying in the wind. The dripping paint from the artist’s sleeve is looks thick and sticky. There are paint drips down the piece that make everything look fluid and fragile. Texture is one of the most important elements in the experience of the work.
Shape is an important element in Stressin. The artist juxtaposed harsh angular square shapes and circular fluid round shapes. This increases the sense of tension in the painting. The shapes have form and substance. The end of the paintbrush appears light and floating. The texture of the paint feels heavy. The man has substance and realistic contours. The artist uses repetition of elements, but they are contained within well-defined shapes. The canvas is divided into sections and the repetition is confined to its own shape. There is no flow between the shapes, another technique to enhance the feeling of tension.
The composition of the piece is asymmetrical with the focus on the right side and bottom of the canvas. In terms of scale, the elements of the painting are fictional representations of the subject’s mind. The man, brush, and recognizable elements are proportional, but the ghosts, shark, and other figures are not, making them almost dreamlike in quality. The composition is complex, and only seems unified because of the major lines and central figure of the painting. The use of watercolors allowed the artist to blend tones and make it appear like one element was trying to cover another, both struggling for space on the canvas. These effects could have been achieved with oil or acrylic, but watercolor gives them a softness.
The meaning of the work is about the ghosts of the past. It is about memories and images that haunt the subject of the painting, the emotional trauma that he must deal with through the canvas. This painting evokes both stress and sadness. There is one symbol that stands out in the painting. One of the ghosts has a long Pinocchio nose, suggesting that the subject has been hurt by some sort of lie. Some of the faces are angry. The whale or shark at the bottom is broken and bleeding, like it has been harpooned. The word “passion” suggests lost love or perhaps passion that destroys.
This work might be biographical and about the losses that the artist has sustained personally. It is also a political commentary about the senselessness of hate and racial tensions. This was a major theme of the artist’s work. When this work is taken in context of the other work of the artist, one could see a personal loss that was suffered as a result of larger societal tensions. The theme of the problems of African Americans shows through the exaggerated African facial features of the subject. This gives it a historical and present tense context regarding the tensions in the black community.
My first impression of the work was about the stress that is expressed in the painting. The stress in the painting is tangible. There seems to be blood dropping from the color of the man. The ghost immediately brought up thoughts of ghosts of the past, perhaps someone who died as a result of the tensions that are shown in the rest of the painting. I cannot decide if the fish thing in the bottom is a harpooned whale, like someone being gunned down, or a shark waiting to attack. Either way, it is a menacing figure. The red splashes of “blood” throughout suggest violence. The entire piece is filled with tension, trauma, loss, and sadness. This painting has a heavy emotional impact that gets even deeper the closer you examine the painting. This is a highly emotional piece.
