Dirty Bomb 2008

Here’s Inigo Manglano-Ovalle’s ‘Dirty Bomb’ floating in the gallery, a sculpture that's all about contrasts. It's pristine white, yet marked with splatters, like a canvas that’s been through a war zone. Up close, you can see how the surface plays with light, smooth and reflective in some areas, rough and absorbent in others. Those dark splatters at the front – they're not just stains, they're like a record of something catastrophic, a deliberate act of defacement. Then there’s that sleek, geometric tail fin, a total contrast to the organic messiness of the front. It reminds me of Rauschenberg’s combines, where he brought together painting and sculpture. This piece is a conversation about beauty and destruction, order and chaos, the clean and the contaminated. It's not just about what we see, but what we feel and fear. Art, at its best, should leave you with more questions than answers.