Painting, Leather Frame by Michael Banks: Pale Face 2

An eye is boxed off like a specimen, and a black cloud moves in from the right.

Pale Face 2 is a painting by Michael Banks, from the 20th C., in paint on board within a leather frame. Fragmented portraits built from overlapping marks, text and shapes are common ground for contemporary painters interested in memory and identity. A white head in profile fills the left side, crossed with pink and brown line work and rows of small script-like marks. One eye sits inside a framed rectangle. At right, a heavy black form carries a hollow white circle, with a small gray face in the upper corner. The signature sits at lower left. It is 21 inches wide, 1.25 deep and 29 high.

A portrait that refuses to be read only once.