Title of Work: Color of Life
Artist: Stephen "iSM" Barnes
Size: 20"x28"
Medium: Printed on Canvas

"Color of Life" is a Jean-Michel Basquiat inspired painting.
It comes from a series of paintings that opens the discussion of mental illness in the African American community.
It is to shine more light on the pairing between mental illness and genius.
We celebrate the genius of the talent, but frowned upon his deficiency from mental illness, not recognizing the double edge sword of how the gift is accompanied by the curse.
It's important to understand that it's OK to receive help and to aspire to be mentally healthy.

Basquiat's art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique. He used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the Black community of his time, as well as attacks on power structures and systems of racism. His visual poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle.