Sherman Beck USA, b. 1942
Untitled, 2016
Oil on canvas
38 x 26 in
96.5 x 66 cm
96.5 x 66 cm
8509
Further images
This painting is among the most abstract of Sherman Beck's Mask, or Ancestor, series. Inspired in part by the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, which begins,...
This painting is among the most abstract of Sherman Beck's Mask, or Ancestor, series. Inspired in part by the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, which begins, “We wear the mask that grins and lies," the series examines the connections between the masks we put on our faces with our expressions, and the traditional masks used in Africa to conceal the identity of the wearer. The series ranges from the highly figurative to the highly abstract. In compositions such as this one, the presence of masks or faces is purely based on the phenomena of pareidolia, or the perception of faces where there are none, such as with the "Man in the Moon."