Artist and 3 D Model 2017

Alexander Roitburd’s painting ‘Artist and 3 D Model’ sets up a studio encounter, a world within a world, rendered with these earthy tones. I can imagine him there in his studio, grappling with the age-old challenge: How do you represent reality, or even imagine a new one? He's in this ornate chair, like a king in his domain, yet there’s a vulnerability in his gaze. Is he capturing the 3D model, or is he capturing something else entirely? Maybe the feeling of being an artist, trying to hold onto an image that’s always just out of reach. The texture of the paint itself—thick, almost crusty in places—gives the painting a tangible quality, like you could reach out and touch the artist's process. And that blue grid of the model against the solidness of the artist… it’s like Roitburd is asking, what’s more real, the idea or the thing itself? It’s a conversation, this painting, between the artist, the model, and well, all of us.