Languid Evening in Gurzuf 1981

Volodymyr Loboda made 'Languid Evening in Gurzuf', painted with a bold, almost reckless, application of oil paint. I love how he is thinking through the painting as he applies the marks. It looks like he’s using big brushes, maybe even palette knives. There’s a real sense of physicality to the surface. The paint isn’t trying to hide itself. It’s thick in some places, thin in others, and completely transparent in the upper part of the canvas. The edges of the reclining figure are defined by these dark red outlines that make me think of Matisse, but rougher, and more immediate. You can see the process by which the work was made. Look at the bold brushstrokes of pink that make up the figure’s torso, how they blend into the background of yellow and green. This is painting as an act of discovery, a kind of visual thinking-out-loud. Think of someone like Bob Thompson who, like Loboda, seemed to be grappling with the weight of art history while also forging their own path. It shows that art is always an open-ended question, never a closed statement.