Electric Dream 2017

Joshua Flint’s ‘Electric Dream’ is an oil painting that appears to have emerged gradually, layer upon layer, like memories surfacing from the depths of the mind. Looking at this painting, I imagine Flint building up the composition with thin washes of color, scraping back layers, adding more, and allowing figures to appear and disappear. Maybe he was thinking about the way we perceive the world through fragments, how we piece together narratives from fleeting glimpses of reality. The lower section of the picture plane is built with a lot of small brush marks, whilst the figures above are hazier. It's so interesting how he lets the yellow peek through in both halves of the composition! I can imagine the kind of emotional tenor he might have wanted to create in the viewers. There’s a sense of ambiguity here, as if the artist is inviting us to question what we see and how we interpret it. It feels like he is in conversation with painters like Gerhard Richter and Luc Tuymans. By embracing uncertainty, Flint allows for multiple readings and invites viewers to bring their own experiences and perspectives to the work.