Motanka 2016

This mixed media piece, "Motanka", was made by Oleh Denysenko. Look at the layering and texture! The artist builds up this surface, almost like he's constructing something rather than just painting. You can really feel the hand of the artist here, can't you? It's not about hiding the process, but embracing it, making it part of the story. I keep coming back to the halo around the figure's head. It's not perfect, not a smooth circle, but more like a sun, radiating out in uneven bursts. And that cross on the face – is it a mask, a binding, or a kind of protection? It’s that tension between beauty and something a little unsettling, a little broken, that I find so compelling. Denysenko reminds me a bit of Antoni Tàpies, in the way he treats the surface as a field for exploration, a kind of archeological dig where the past is always present, peeking through the layers. Art, after all, is just a conversation between artists, a dialogue across time.