Basquiat similarly combined raw expressive mark making with figurative elements including eyes and faces using oilstick and acrylic on canvas creating bold emotionally charged works that blur abstraction and figuration in a distinctly American expressionist tradition.

Guston developed a boldly expressive figurative style that merged abstraction with cartoonish grotesque imagery using thick painterly marks and recurring motifs of eyes and faces much like the confrontational and raw energy found in this work.

Lassnig created intensely expressive figurative portraits where distorted faces and bodies convey psychological states using bold acrylic applications that share the same raw confrontational energy and blending of abstraction with figurative portraiture seen in this piece.