blue is the smoke of war, white the bones of man by amanda williams

I’ve linked to Amanda William’s AW Gallery before, back when I featured her friend Lekan Jeyifous’ home on this site. One of my favorite paintings in Lek’s apartment was done by Amanda and has traveled from house to house with Lek. It’s a treat to show you my new favorite painting by the talented Ms Williams.

The painting pictured is called “Blue Is the Smoke of War, White the Bones of Man,” which Amanda tells me is the title of a little known abstract expressionist painting by Romare Bearden. I fell in love last month after seeing it at Three Peas Art Lounge in the South Loop.

Amanda writes:
“Everyone loves his collages, but I wanted to see how his spatial sensibility might have translated to his painted works. I decided to take a very brief foray into “copying the masters”… the exercise was supposed to be tongue in cheek in that its a bit hard to mimic abstraction. But I did it. Mine of course looks not one bit like his. He used splatters which I realized I hate. I like drips. Drips and washes. Not attacking, but confrontational nonetheless…”

I love it.