Tres bocas 1999

Julio Galan made *Tres bocas* with paint, and maybe some collage, to create this unsettling image, though I don’t know when. There are at least three faces here, layered like images in a dream. Galan wasn’t shy about laying on the paint—areas of the canvas have a thick, almost sculptural quality. The black lines that crisscross the composition feel impulsive, like a doodle that’s escaped the page. Look at how the colors bleed into each other, creating this hazy, in-between space. It’s not quite surrealism, but it has that same sense of the uncanny, a world slightly off-kilter. Galan reminds me a bit of Francis Picabia, another artist who wasn't afraid to mix styles and moods. Both artists invite you to see painting as a space for exploration and play, where meaning is never fixed, but always in process.