Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Ernok, from Portfolio I, is a vivid and confrontational figure painting that exemplifies the artist’s command of color, gesture, and symbolic distortion. Set against a saturated red ground, the composition is anchored by a monumental, black-bodied figure whose raised hand and exposed, gridded teeth create an immediate sense of urgency and psychological intensity.

Basquiat deploys a volatile palette of red, yellow, turquoise, pink, and black, using thick, aggressive lines to carve the figure into the surface. The mask-like face, wide eyes, and skeletal mouth recall Basquiat’s recurring interest in African masks, medical imagery, and the performative nature of identity. The exaggerated hand gestures—one raised, one crossing the torso—suggest both assertion and defense, reinforcing the tension between visibility and vulnerability.

Fragments of handwritten text and symbols hover around the figure, including the repeated “ERNO K,” which reads like a chant or incantation rather than a name. Language functions here as sound and mark, destabilized and rhythmic, echoing Basquiat’s practice of collapsing speech, noise, and image into a single visual register. The crown-like headpiece subtly invokes authority and status, even as it sits uneasily atop a figure that appears both empowered and exposed.

In its screen-printed form, Ernok retains the ferocity of Basquiat’s hand while sharpening its graphic impact. The work stands as a charged portrait of presence and resistance—an image that embodies Basquiat’s ability to transform the human figure into a symbol of power, identity, and confrontation within the visual language of late twentieth-century art. For more information on