THE CHILD 2020

Alex Gross made 'The Child' using paint, and look at how it all just sits there on the surface. It’s like the paint is saying, "Hey, I'm here, doing my thing." There’s something so pleasing about the way Gross lets everything coexist. The beast, the child, the candy-coloured bubbles, and rainbow overhead. It's not photorealism, but something else, more honest, more funny. If you look closely, you can see the marks of the brush. The painting almost becomes about painting, and that is fun. This feels like a cousin to Mark Ryden's work, where cute meets grotesque, all rendered with such precision. It’s like Gross is saying, ‘I'm not gonna hide the effort.’ The painting is the thing, not the illusion. Ultimately, art is a conversation, and Gross is throwing his voice into the mix, loud and clear.