Verbunden 2016

This compelling scene was painted by Siegfried Zademack, and as you can see, it’s a real head-scratcher. Imagine the artist, brush in hand, coaxing this image into being. The sepia tones, the chiaroscuro—it feels like stepping into a dream. What's going on here? At first glance, it's pretty intense, but look closer. Her body is tethered to a rusted pulley, while cables connect her to a smartphone. Her lower half turns to rubble. It's kind of heartbreaking, isn't it? I wonder what Zademack was thinking? Maybe about the way we're all wired up, connected, and yet somehow crumbling. The old and the new, the flesh and the digital, all tangled together. Painters have always used the body to talk about bigger stuff, and here, the body is a battleground. It's a reminder that painting can be a space for asking questions, not just answering them, a conversation between the artist, the painting, and us, the viewers.