God Electromagnetism (Detail ) 2015

Saul Zanolari made "God Electromagnetism" some time around 2015, and it looks like a digital image with elements of drawing and painting. The color palette is bold – reds, blues, and browns, with flashes of white and yellow. Imagine Zanolari sitting in front of a screen, clicking and dragging, layering images, and digitally painting in the details. It's a slow process of building up forms and textures, adding highlights and shadows, trying different combinations until something clicks. I'm thinking about how digital painting lets you zoom way in, to fuss over tiny details that you might miss in a traditional painting. This way of working invites a different kind of mark-making, where precision and control coexist with spontaneity. What is the effect of the theatrical curtains and backdrops? It seems like the artist is interested in the performative and artificial aspects of image-making. Artists are magpies, always borrowing from one another, riffing on old themes in new ways. And for me, painting is always a conversation – a way of thinking through images.