Outlaw of Gor 1976

Boris Vallejo made this painting called Outlaw of Gor sometime in the 20th century with paint on, well, something. The brushwork here is kind of amazing, I mean, look at those muscles, so shiny and smooth. This feels like a process of layering, building up the forms slowly. You can see it especially in the way the figures emerge from this smoky, kind of undefined ground. It’s like they’re solid, but also dissolving at the edges. Look at the woman’s arm – see how the light catches it just so? It almost feels three-dimensional, like you could reach out and touch it. I guess this is like a less neurotic Frank Frazetta, who had his own way of dealing with the hyper-masculine image, but Vallejo goes all in, letting the smooth surfaces speak for themselves. Anyway, art is weird, right? We just keep looking and thinking and seeing things in new ways.