Rewilding 2017

Joshua Flint made this painting, Rewilding, sometime this century, and it’s a real head-scratcher in the best way. The artist uses a muted palette, mostly greys and lavenders, which gives the scene an ethereal, dreamlike quality. It feels like the painting emerged rather than was constructed. The paint handling here is great: thin washes that build up atmosphere next to thicker scumbles of opaque color which suggest form without being too literal. The marks around the central figure feel almost like erasures, building up a sense of history, like the image has been scrubbed at and reworked. Check out the way the red paint is applied to the figure’s torso, it’s both delicate and visceral. Flint’s work reminds me a bit of Neo Rauch, in that he creates these narrative scenes that feel both familiar and deeply strange. It’s that feeling of something just out of reach that makes it so compelling, isn’t it?