Strasni Lorenco 2020

"Strasni Lorenco" was painted by Dragan Ilić Di Vogo using oil on canvas. Di Vogo applies paint in a rich, impasto manner, building up textures and visual energy. The pigment itself seems almost sculptural; this horse is clearly made with passion, by hand. Look closely, and you’ll see that areas of the horse’s body are marked with various other painterly effects. These gestures draw our attention to the physical act of painting. The social context in which oil paintings are made has changed over time. In the past, paint was made painstakingly by hand, whereas today it is an industrialized product, available at low cost. Yet the act of painting itself remains fundamentally unchanged. Di Vogo engages with these traditions, showing that skilled handwork still counts in the twenty-first century. By emphasizing this point, he elevates the status of labor and process within the world of art, and implies a social critique of our own industrialized world.