His sweetheart. From the Heroic babies series (right part of the diptych) 1989

Vasiliy Ryabchenko’s “His Sweetheart” from the Heroic Babies series feels like a half-remembered dream, made with oil on canvas. The paint is applied in layers, sometimes thin and washy, other times thick and built up, and you can see how Ryabchenko worked and reworked the surface. The colors are dreamy and jarring at the same time, with earthy browns and greens bumping up against the lilac and baby blue. Check out the way the child’s face is rendered, those slightly smudged features and searching eyes. There’s a vulnerability there, but also a kind of knowing, as if the child has seen too much. Around them, the world is equally uncertain, the edges of forms dissolving into the surrounding space. This pushes against any one, solid interpretation. It reminds me a little of Philip Guston’s later work; that same sense of unease and humor mingling together. Both artists teach us that art is a process of discovery, not a means to an end.