Power of Source 2020

Mark Kostabi's "Power of Source", painted in 2020, presents us with a surreal embrace rendered with an airbrushed finish. It's like the whole thing was dreamt up in gradients, a real smooth operator, where even the shadows seem to purr. The faceless figures, intertwined against a backdrop of geometric shapes, feel like they've been plucked from a mannequin factory and dropped into a stage set by de Chirico. Everything is hard-edged, but with soft tonal shifts. Look at the way the light caresses the figures' limbs; that kind of airbrushing lends them an almost spectral quality, don't you think? That ghostly embrace reminds me a bit of Eric Fischl, but where Fischl's work oozes tension, Kostabi’s feels more like a meditation on form. It leaves me pondering how we negotiate intimacy in an age of anonymity, which is a question, not an answer, you know?