Plate Tectonics 2018

Joshua Flint made this painting, Plate Tectonics, with what looks like acrylic or maybe oil, and I’m already wondering about the name, about these shifting plates! What hits me first is the mood, how the muted colors and loose brushwork give a sense of something dissolving or coming apart. The paint isn't too thick, but you can really see the strokes, the way he layered grays and blues to create this foggy space. There’s almost nothing really ‘there’ but then you notice the office chairs. Look closely at the way Flint paints the legs of the chairs, and how they seem to sink into the ground. I see something melancholy in this painting, a sense of things shifting, settling, maybe even sinking. It reminds me a little of how Philip Guston used to paint, that same feeling of things being both heavy and kind of cartoonish at the same time, playing with the edge of representation. It's a painting that invites you to slow down, to feel the weight of the world.