The whole composition brings to mind the rambunctious street art references in Basquiat’s abstractions and the dark symbolism of James Ensor’s grotesque carnival of covered faces. The juxtaposition of American pop art gestures and German Expressionism conveys an angst and horror at the consumerism and globalisation of post-war and contemporary culture. That the painting’s title means ‘ancestral portrait’ is also a clue to the work’s subtext, a jaw-dropping, unstoppable regurgitation of the modalities of its medium.