Art criticism paper - Assignment Example

From 1995, Jackson has been serving as the owner of Peoria’s home of contemporary Art center called the Raven Gallery. It is here that I got to see his painting entitled A Fishing Party displayed as one of the exhibits. This painting shows a group of fishermen and women who have come together to celebrate their fishing endeavours (Art Museum image). This is evidenced by the man on the right who is holding a fishing rod, women dancing and the man behind who is holding a spoon and seems to be eating.

The party takes places in an open area during the night. The painting is about the economic status of fishermen in the society. The main underlying them is the disparity in investment capacity between the blacks and the white in the current American society which consequently determines their economic status (Art Museum image). The group represented has one fishing rod. This shows that despite their long existence in America, the African-Americans are still limited access to economic resources.

Though they are in a party, the people are not really happy. This means that they do not really appreciate the achievements they have gained so far from their fishing. This is definitely a result of their limited capacity to acquire modern fishing technologies that could have given them results worth joyous celebrations. At the same time, it is ironical to call it a Fishing Party yet the people are not really celebrating as expected of them. And worst of all they are fishermen and women but where is fish tonight?

This shows that the pressure to meet their economic obligations cannot allow them to have a share of the valuable meal. Such a reality makes their party to have mixed mood. The artist has correctly brought out the state of mixed mood by using a range of bright and dark colours as well as light shades and dark shades of colour and painting faces with mixed emotional expressions.