Genealogy

Standing almost two and a half metres tall, Rashid Johnson’s Genealogy forms part of a series of abstracted portraits first unveiled in 2013. Depicted within each work are loosely figurative ‘characters’, enigmatically obscured behind dark smoky traces, and the artist’s signature tar-black wax and soap mix. Material is fundamental to the Chicago-born artist’s practice, and the work is the product of a complex and unique process. First constructing panels of wood flooring in a geometric arrangement, Johnson goes on to spray his support with gold enamel paint. The artist then uses a blowtorch to singe and efface the surface, leaving behind an ethereal burnished trace—a branding that carries sinister associations with the transatlantic slave trade. Combining wax and black soap—a restorative plant-based soap made with ash that is produced in West African countries such as Ghana—into a thick impasto, Johnson splatters and smears his character’s silhouette onto the work, which he further incises with energetic sgraffito marks. A testament to the artist’s rich interrogation of medium as a signifier of black identity, Genealogy also speaks to the legacy of his Abstract Expressionist antecedents. Across his instantly recognisable and widely-celebrated works, Johnson exhibits a mesmeric exploration of material, alchemy and gesture.