“Nah… I Don’t Want to Talk About It…” — Prismacolor & Ink

With its compact scale and Polaroid-like border, this signed piece by Edward Cushenberry captures a still moment brimming with withheld emotion. A Black man — possibly a skater or local anti-hero — sits framed in profile, his cigarette mid-burn, his hands clasped in tension or thought. Dressed in a faded pink shirt with a mysterious black-and-white badge and surrounded by stylized foliage, he gazes beyond the viewer with a sharp, ambiguous calm. The phrase beneath him — “Nah… I don’t want to talk about it…” — serves as both caption and shield, echoing the language of zines, comics, and confessional photo series alike.

Cushenberry, known for his documentary-style photography and deeply personal drawing practice, moves fluently across media to craft visual vignettes of real emotional weight. Here, he renders the immediacy of an analog snapshot entirely by hand — using Prismacolor pencil, graphite, ink, and acrylic — creating a tension between spontaneity and construction. The comic-like line work and stylized perspective are reminiscent of early 2000s indie zines and artists like Raymond Pettibon or Ron Regé Jr., while the bold, flat color palette — greens, pinks, sea blues — gives the image graphic power without losing its vulnerability.

There’s something cinematic in the framing, something of the paused film still or the unspoken moment between strangers. Yet it’s unmistakably drawn from lived culture: skateboarding, friendship, solitude, race, resistance. Cushenberry’s use of the Polaroid motif is not nostalgic — it’s intimate, deliberate, and deeply contemporary.

Object: Original drawing on Bristol paper

Title: “Nah… I Don’t Want to Talk About It…”

Artist / Author: Edward Cushenberry

Date: 2023

Technique / Method: Prismacolor pencil, ink, graphite, and acrylic paint

Medium / Materials: Bristol paper

Edition: Unique

Signed: Yes, on reverse

Dimensions: 10.8 × 8.9 cm (4.25 × 3.50 in)

Condition: Excellent, with visible surface textures and edge folds that reinforce its physical presence

Provenance: Darwin Collection