Merkur 2013

This painting, Merkur, by Dragan Ilić Di Vogo, seems to have been made with a combination of loose brushwork and soft gradients. It's a dance of colour and form. I love how the ethereal, almost ghostly, white horse dominates the canvas. The texture of the horse is smooth, blending into the background while contrasting sharply with the hard-edged geometry surrounding it. The purple curve, rendered in solid form, slices through the scene in contrast to the dreamlike globes. There's something really satisfying about the way these elements come together, like a collage of disparate ideas. It reminds me a bit of some early de Chirico, not in style, but in its odd combination of realism and geometric forms. It’s as if the artist is saying, "Here are some things. Now you figure out what they mean!" Which, for me, is what art is all about.