Blue Furniture 1993

Volodymyr Loboda made this painting called 'Blue Furniture' with oil paints on canvas. Loboda's approach to mark making and color reminds me of how I think about artmaking as a process, one where you're building up layers. There's something really physical about how he's put the paint down. It's not too thick, but you can tell he wasn't afraid to load up his brush. I like the contrast between the flatness of the pink background and the almost sculptural quality of the furniture itself. Take a look at the way the light hits the top of the chair in the middle. You can see how he's used these small, deliberate strokes of pink, blue, and yellow to suggest form and volume. For me, this painting connects with the work of someone like Philip Guston, in that they both explore the space between representation and abstraction, always embracing ambiguity.