The entire figure is black, filled with solid colour that is highly impactful, particularly when contrasting with the bright yellow and orange tones of the background. The content is roughly added, almost industrial and perhaps captures the spirit and style of 20th century western art. Basquiat would take elements of his African roots as well as from studies that he carried out into traditional European art to create a very unique body of work. Few have been able to make the mark that Basquiat left behind and his influence is said to have been crucial in helping the American art scene to dominate across the world over a period of several decades within the 20th century. He was based in New York, and it was from here that the biggest impact came, with this city remaining today as one of the brightest lights in forming new movements within the contemporary art scene.
As with many of his paintings from the early 1980s, Cabeza has been since released as a series of limited edition prints, numbering 60 in total. These continue to sell well and offer smaller collectors the opportunity to purchase something valuable at a price which is more affordable than any of the artist's original paintings. These are now valued in the many millions of pounds, though most were picked up by collectors during his own lifetime and rarely now, sadly, see the light of day. This has made it a little harder to research and document this artist's career but it is quite possible that over time some of these artworks are acquired by public institutions as a means to showing off one of the most important Afro-Caribbean artists within their collection. There is a growing clamour from patrons to do this, too, in order to make the overall displays more reflective of modern America.
Obnoxious Liberals, Hollywood Africans and Untitled Boxer are some of the better known artworks from this artist, but Cabeza still holds a great significance and further continues the artist's work with portraiture within his highly expressive style. He also worked in drawing too and would use that medium from time to time in order to quickly try out new ideas prior to commencing some of his mixed media artworks that would often be stretched across huge canvases that could be at least two metres wide and tall. You may notice the use of string with this artwork which holds the canvas in place against the frame - this was not typical of the artist who usually had the canvas stretch to fit the entire dimensions of the frame.
