Carousel 2016

Joshua Flint’s “Carousel” is an oil painting where the brushstrokes blend into a dreamscape. It feels like an unraveling, or like multiple images trying to occupy the same space. I get the sense of separate realities—people on steps, a decrepit building, a weird carnival pony. All rendered in soft, diffused light. The paint looks thin in places, almost like a watercolor wash, and thicker in others, building up texture and a sense of depth, like a collage. I can imagine Flint, layering image on image, like memory itself, searching for a harmony between disparate parts. He must have considered the push and pull between representation and abstraction, and like other painters, he lets the painting do its thing, becoming an experience. It reminds me that painting is a conversation across time, where we’re all borrowing, stealing, and riffing off each other, trying to make sense of the world in our own way.