Tribute to Byzantine masters 1986

Chronis Botsoglou made this painting, 'Tribute to Byzantine masters,' with what looks like washes of colour and some pretty expressive mark-making. You can see the hand of the artist here, and for me that’s always key. The colours are muted, almost ghostly, with these soft pinks and blues floating in a sea of white, but it’s the texture that grabs me. Look how the paint is scrubbed into the surface, like he's trying to pull the image out of the ether. There's a real push and pull here, between revealing and concealing, that I find super compelling. Take a look at the figure’s face: it’s built up with these quick, nervous strokes, so you get a sense of bone structure but also this fragility, this transience. For me it shares something of the spirit of someone like Giacometti, with this sense of the figure dissolving before our eyes. It’s less about capturing a likeness and more about capturing a feeling, a fleeting moment. It’s beautiful.