Suave Como La Noche 1982

Carlos Almaraz made 'Suave Como La Noche' with what looks like pastels, creating a dreamy nightscape that hums with color. It's like he's not just showing us a place, but a feeling. The texture here is super interesting, right? You can almost feel the graininess of the pastel on the paper. Almaraz layers these bright pinks and yellows, especially in those vertical lines, which contrast with the cool blues and greens of the water and sky. Look how the light bounces off the water, little scribbles of white and pink. That lone statue standing by the water’s edge gets me every time, it is both solid and a bit ghostly, like a memory. It reminds me of Giorgio de Chirico's paintings, with their strange, silent cityscapes. Like de Chirico, Almaraz invites us into a space that's both familiar and unsettling. Art's not about answers, it's about the questions it stirs in us.