The Merengue 1955

Vela Zanetti made this painting, The Merengue, with oil on canvas, and the marks are singing. Zanetti uses these straight, hatched brushstrokes, almost like he’s sculpting the figures with paint. The palette's fairly muted, mostly earth tones, but there's a liveliness in the way he layers the paint, creating a sense of depth and rhythm. I’m drawn to the way the hands are rendered, especially the fingers drumming on the conga. You can almost hear the beat. The texture looks smooth overall, but you can still sense the build-up of paint in areas, giving it a tactile quality. It reminds me a bit of some of Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings. There’s a similar sense of dynamism and energy, but Zanetti brings his own unique sensibility to the canvas. For me, art’s always about these conversations across time, artists borrowing and riffing off each other, and making something new in the process.