Walter Price

Walter Price’s drawings function like well-laid traps. Populated by a host of madcap characters, including musclemen, demons and dancers to name but a few, they actively encourage viewers to find a cohesive narrative in their depicted scenes, only to thwart any attempt to do so. For his own part, Price is reluctant to offer explanations. “I think people want answers too easily,” he says. “They just want you to tell them what the work is about.”

According to the Georgia-born, New York-based artist, these figures don’t evolve according to a consistent plan. Depending on the moment, he might pull a body position from a photograph à la Peter Doig, take something from deep within his own imagination or reference a political event “with crazy twist on it just to fuck with you.” Often developing from a single mark, colour or idea, these works can also be seen as purely formal exercises. Using his drawing practice as a space for experimentation, Price balances figuration with moments of pure abstraction. “They’re trying to work against each other but in harmony,” he explains of these opposing tendencies. “It’s pretty much like trying to do the salsa and jazz dance at the same time.”

Made entirely during quarantine, the drawings brought together for this digital showcase are arguably heavier and more politically charged than ever before. In Feelings are not facts, for instance, a small group of people tower over a fourth figure who is huddled on the ground. Rendered with ink and a sharpie pen, their disapproving glares and pointed fingers bring to mind recent instances of white people policing the behaviour of African-Americans in public spaces, such as the case of a white woman who called the police on a black bird-watcher in Central Park after he asked her to put her dog on a lead. Although Price isn’t directly influenced by one news story or another, the free way in which he works—“I just go with the flow”—suggests that, at least subconsciously, each drawing can be seen as an expression of what he is feeling and thinking about in a given moment.

This makes some works harder to decipher than others. Is that Donald Trump being fed a piece of white bread and an almond in Here take this (May 14th), and if so, why? Here, as in all of his images, Price privileges “weirdness” over narrative legibility. “As a black man,” he explains, “people often expect something more direct from me and I love to go against that.” White viewers such as myself, particularly those based outside of the US, might be left wondering which gaps in understanding are the result of deliberate obtuseness on the part of the artist or their own ignorance of African-American history and culture. Ultimately, though, what’s left is the vibrancy of Price’s mark making. “The narrative pulls you in,” he says, “but it’s the rhythm and movement that hold you there and take you where I want to go.”