Basquiat was born in New York in 1960. At the end of the seventies he was an street artist who entered the overheated art-scene in the eighties. Collectors and galleries were searching for everything that was new in their vision. At first Basquiat was a graffiti artist working on the streets of New York, although he never thought about his art as being graffiti and actually it didn't’t look like the usual graffiti. His dream was to become a star and he succeeded, but he had to pay a price for his stardom. He died in 1988, just 27 years young.

The work of Basquiat contains a lot of autobiographical elements and in-depth analyses is needed to understand his work. His hero’s are from the Jazz and sports world, these are theme’s that return in his work time after time. One compares his work with the Art Brut artist Jean Dubuffet and Cy Twombly to place his work in an art-historical context. But Basquiat had more favourite artists in history that inspired him to which he refers. His work has been influenced by graffiti, Pollock, Picasso, child drawings, African art, comics and Warhol -a good friend-, to name a few. He also had an interest for the Western tradition of the female portrait which shows in the many paraphrases he made. For example his work Boone which is a paraphrase on the Mona Lisa of Leonardo Da Vinci. But he has drawn and painted a lot more portraits, like Picasso and Warhol.

My connection with Basquiat is the work I created in the eighties and the strength and intelligence of his work that inspired me. Although differing from set-up and with a different background, were my mixed media collages references to my dissatisfaction of not being allowed to improvise Jazz when studying at the conservatory, autobiographical elements and subversion against things in ‘my’ world. Inspiration sources for me were also the artists Basquiat had as favourite, like Picasso, Rauschenberg and African art, to name a few.

The portrait I painted of Basquiat is a kind of tribute to my hero of the eighties. Above his portrait sits the crown that he often used in his work and therefore can be seen as his logo. I crowned him king of the neo expressionists art of the eighties. The references are from his work Charles the First and in a way you could see my painting as a paraphrase on Charles the First. I gave my painting the title Jean the First. At the right a reference to the second panel of Charles the First with the date of birth and date of death of Basquiat. The cross proceed into the hand that points to the acronym JMBSQT. Basquiat used acronyms like SAMO (same old shit) and CPRKK (Charly Parker). Below the acronym I placed the title SHHH / Peaceful, a piece from the cd In a silent way from Miles Davis. The E’s in peaceful I have drawn as three vertical lines as Basquiat did when working on the street, writing his graffiti and what I think is a fancy reproduction of the letter E. A portrait therefore of my hero.