Interlude 2020

Timur Akhriev made this painting, Interlude, using oil paint in what looks like a flurry of gestures. What I imagine is someone thinking, "I want to make something beautiful," and then wondering how to go about it. You can feel Akhriev working to balance representation and abstraction. The human figure emerges from a field of marks, almost swallowed by the surrounding foliage. It’s fascinating to consider how a single gesture, that arc of the arm, can communicate so much – a feeling of languor, of letting go. The surface is lush with color, like a garden bursting into bloom, and you can get a sense of the artist's pleasure as he lets different colors meet and mingle. There’s a long history of artists representing the reclining nude, and I think about how each painter finds a way to renew the tradition with their own unique language of form. Painters are constantly responding to each other across time, finding inspiration and new possibilities in the shared language of paint.