Wife of the Factory Worker 2008

Alexander Roitburd made "Wife of the Factory Worker" with what looks like oil paint and maybe some other media – it's hard to tell, isn't it? What grabs me here is the artist's hand, the way he approaches putting paint on the canvas as a kind of conversation. There's this underlying image, almost like a faded photograph, but then he comes over the top with these zinging lines and shapes, like graffiti. The colors are so bold, neon even. And it's not just the colors, it's the way he uses line to carve out new forms and disrupt the old ones. There's a tension between the layers that is very compelling. Take a look at the bottom left, where those green lines turn into bottle shapes. It's like he's rebuilding the whole scene with his own vocabulary. Roitburd reminds me a bit of Francis Picabia, always pushing, never settling. I love how he lets the painting stay open, like a question mark.