Soleil 2021

Vincent Xeus made this painting, Soleil, from some kind of oil paint and canvas, or maybe a board. What gets me right away is how the image seems to emerge from a haze of brushstrokes. It's like Xeus is feeling his way through the painting, letting the colors guide him. The way he uses color is interesting. The blues and greens in the background are really atmospheric, like a dreamscape, and then there’s that halo of yellow around her head. It's not a solid, defined light, but more like a suggestion of light, a feeling of warmth. Look closely, and you can see how the paint is applied thinly in some areas, almost transparent, and then built up in others to create texture and depth. Notice how the subject's face is soft and out of focus and the dark strokes at the base of the frame are unresolved. This reminds me of some early work by Gerhard Richter, in the way the image is almost there, but not quite. It's like trying to grasp a memory. It's this kind of ambiguity that makes painting so interesting, you know?