Telos 2012

Here we have "Telos" by Darren Waterston, created with an earthy palette of sepia and cream. Just imagine Waterston conjuring this world into being, coaxing those brown washes across the surface, tilting and turning the canvas to let gravity do its thing. I wonder if he was thinking about Piranesi when he made this? There's a similar sense of spatial ambiguity, an Escher-like quality, as if the architecture is simultaneously collapsing and ascending. The paint is thin, almost translucent, which gives the whole thing a dreamlike atmosphere. Look how the brown bleeds into the creamy ground, creating these ghostly, skeletal structures. They remind me of gothic cathedrals, or maybe even the inside of a decaying lung. I love the way artists borrow from each other, consciously or unconsciously, building on what came before. Painting is like a big, messy conversation that never ends. It embraces uncertainty, allowing for multiple readings and meanings.