Barber Shop Phrenology #4 (Heads Up)

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 of performers, and a police line up of suspects.
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.

Producing each portrait involves sketching out the style and volume of the hair and determining whether the profile faces left or right —the sides of a coin. Out of the miasma of ink lines and washes of thinned paint, I begin to see the face, eyes, noses and mouths come into focus. The process becomes improvisational and intuitive. I apply a mix of expressionist stylings in wet media (acrylics, ink pens, neon and metallic markers) and arranging collaged photographic materials sourced from coffee table art books, urban fashion magazines and the Internet. As I work, I reference the marble busts of Roman generals, Romare Bearden’s collages, 1970’s Black haircare advertising, Picasso’s Cubists portraits and Marvel comic superheroes.

'Barber Shop Phrenology (Heads Up) is an original mixed-medium work of art comprised of nine drawings created with high quality acrylics paint, opaque, metallic, neon inks and hand-cut collage on 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.

This artwork is sold.