Sunflower. Helios flower. 2020

Yulia Mamontova made this painting of sunflowers with oil on canvas, and, wow, you can really see and feel the texture of that oil paint! I can imagine her in the studio, building up the petals with thick daubs of bright yellow, layer upon layer. I bet she was thinking about how to capture the luminosity of these flowers, playing with light and shadow to make them almost glow against the pale ground. The centers are like these deep, dark pools. There's something so raw and immediate about those black outlines of the stems and leaves too – a kind of directness that reminds me of Guston’s late work. It’s like she’s having a conversation with all these other painters across time, you know? That little drip there, that's her saying "hey!" to Helen Frankenthaler! Painting is just this ongoing exchange, this playful exploration of what it means to see and feel, and I love how she embraces that ambiguity, leaving space for us to bring our own experiences to the work.