The State of the Night 1960

Vilen Barsky’s, ‘The State of the Night’ seems to have been born from a battle between colors right on the canvas. Thick daubs of blue, black, and pink collide in what feels like a raw, unfiltered expression. The physicality of the paint is so present, it’s like you can feel Barsky wrestling with the medium. The surface is built up, layered, almost topographical, with trails and ridges of color. Look at the way the pink paint drips down, thin red lines cutting across the darker mass below. It's a raw, almost violent gesture, yet there's something tender about it too, like a wound that’s been carefully tended to. There’s a kinship here with the work of someone like Cy Twombly, in its embrace of the messy and the unresolved. But while Twombly’s marks often feel like elegant scribbles, Barsky’s are more visceral, more grounded in the here and now. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be pretty. Sometimes, it just needs to be real.