Roofs 1980

Vudon Baklytsky made this painting, Roofs, with oil on canvas, and you can see the weave of the canvas showing through. He’s gone straight in with the paint, and it feels very direct, like he's laying down his thoughts in colour. Look at how the blues and yellows are separated but singing together. The paint isn't mixed so much as laid next to itself. This gives the painting a kind of fractured light, almost like the sun reflecting off broken glass. The roofs themselves are geometric and blocky, but the colours soften the angles. I keep coming back to the cross at the top. It is leaning a little, like maybe the whole painting is tilting. It makes me think of Chagal, or maybe a more folksy interpretation of a Picasso cityscape. "Roofs" isn't trying to give us definitive answers. It invites us to wander through the rooftops and make up our own stories. Isn't that what art's all about?