The Messenger 2019

Joshua Flint made The Messenger with paint, but when, exactly? That’s part of its mystery. The marks are slippery, suggestive, like memories half-formed. Looking at the bird, it’s rendered in these almost translucent washes, a flurry of strokes that capture its movement, its energy. The paint feels thin here, almost like watercolor, but elsewhere it’s thicker, more opaque. The surface has a life of its own. See how Flint lets the paint drip and pool in the lower right? Those little accidents are what make painting so alive, so human. This feels like a conversation with artists like Gerhard Richter, who also embraced chance and ambiguity. With the bird, and the seated figure, it's like they're not quite here, not quite gone. The painting becomes a space of possibility, where meaning is always in flux. It's about seeing, feeling, and thinking, all at once.