Painting, Leather Frame by Michael Banks: Pale Face 1

Scratched lines cross a white face like rain on a window.

Pale Face 1 is a painting by Michael Banks, in paint on board within a leather frame. Contemporary painters often scratch through layered paint to build line and texture, letting earlier layers show. A large white head fills most of the panel, turned slightly away, with one dark ringed eye and another drawn only in outline. Fine scored lines run in every direction across the face and the gray ground. Faint red marks and letters sit at left, and the signature appears at lower right. It is 21 inches wide, 1.25 deep and 29 high.

Pale, yes. Expressionless, not at all.