Sifnos 1972

Panayiotis Tetsis made "Sifnos" with oil on canvas, and you can almost feel him painting it. It's all about the brushstrokes, right? Thick, juicy strokes of green, brown, and yellow, thrown down with a kind of confident abandon. I imagine Tetsis standing in front of the canvas, squinting at the landscape, trying to capture that fleeting moment when the light hits just right. The paint is applied so thickly, you can almost feel the texture of the island itself. Look at the way he drags the brush across the surface, leaving these little trails of pigment. It’s like he’s sculpting the landscape with paint. There's a kinship with other painters grappling with light and form, like Bomberg or Auerbach. Painting is a conversation, a back-and-forth between the artist and the world. Each brushstroke is a question, a tentative step towards understanding. And like any good conversation, it’s full of surprises, detours, and moments of unexpected beauty.