Night (large version) 2011

William Balthazar Rose made this large painting, Night, a while back, and, you know, there's something deeply unsettling about the scene he’s cooked up. I can imagine Rose, alone in his studio, wrestling with this vision. You have to ask, what’s going through an artist’s mind as they create a world like this? The thick paint, the dark palette… it’s all so physical, so urgent. I keep coming back to that figure with the horse head and the candle. It's like a stage, and he’s directing this weird play. I feel like Rose is in conversation with artists like Ensor or Beckmann, those guys who aren’t afraid to get weird and dark. I see echoes of their theatricality, their willingness to push boundaries. Painting is like this ongoing conversation, across time and space. It's embodied expression that invites uncertainty, and a bunch of different ideas about meaning and possibility.