Barber Shop Phrenology #3 (Jokers & Kings)

Barber Shop Phrenology #3 (Jokers & Kings) 2020

The Barber Shop Phrenology Series is a color study exercise and a visual commentary on Black male identity in the context of Politics, Art, History and contemporary American culture. Each work in the series is composed of nine (9) individual original mixed-media drawings on paper, framed and grouped together in a grid.
The works in this series engage the cultural significance of the Black barber shop in African American life as the source material for my creative process and the language of my conceptual thesis. The grid format of the finished art piece is based on the iconic hair style posters found on the walls of these establishments that simultaneously evoke athletic team rosters, a Black business board of directors, a rap concert line-up, and a police database.
Each profile in the grid features a single abstracted image of a Black male figure seated in a barber’s chair, draped in a protective cape with a Sanek strip snug around his neck. At the barber shop every man is king, every man is icon, every man is the G.O.A.T. and the Playoffs VIP. This flexible template is designed to unify each profile into a shared framework that emphasizes the potency of shared community, with much respect for the eloquence of the Self.

Aesthetic sources for these drawings include Ife-Benin bronze sculptured heads of royalty created by Yoruba artisans between the 13th-15th centuries in what is now southeastern Nigeria. The Yoruba people regard the head “ori” as the seat of divine power of the Supreme Being. In a person’s life, the head is the life source and vital instrument determining destiny and personality. The Yoruba highlighted the head as the crown of the body and the place where the soul dwells. The human head is the focus of a person’s identity, communication and perception. It is also the marker for how one is perceived and judged. This philosophy of the head as the most elaborately formed part of Yoruba figure sculpture is reflected and shared as a stylistic device in the works of the Barber Shop Phrenology series.

'Barber Shop Phrenology (Jokers & Kings) is an original mixed-medium artwork. The materials used are high quality acrylics paint, opaque, metallic and neon inks, and hand-cut collage on 11"h x 8.5"w paper. The finished work of art is custom framed (52”h x 43”w.) with white contemporary molding and conservation quality high UV-filtering Museum glazing. Artwork is signed by artist Skip Hill and includes certificate of authenticity.

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