Live Money 2008

This is a painting by Alexander Roitburd called "Live Money," and what immediately hits me is this character emerging from a brown, earthy ground with thick, visible brushstrokes. I imagine Roitburd building up the figure, layer by layer, adjusting the pose, the expression, until it just felt right. The gray skin and those outstretched hands – he’s like a ghostly Benjamin Franklin caught in a moment of…what? Supplication? Horror? And the title, "Live Money," throws another wrench in there. Is it a comment on the corrupting influence of money? Or the life-force it seems to take on? I feel the weight of the paint itself. It's not thin and watery; it's got body, texture. That golden rope, thick and almost umbilical, coming out of the figure… It reminds me of Soutine, of Goya, of all the painters who weren’t afraid to get messy with emotion. Roitburd is in conversation with them, riffing on their themes, adding his own unique, slightly twisted, perspective.