Grey mask 2022

Sergey Piskunov, born in 1989, made this painting, "Grey Mask," without a specified date, but I can tell you that there's some serious labor involved here. Imagine Piskunov in the studio, meticulously layering that cracked grey mask with gold underneath, a trompe l'oeil game of surface and depth. There's something sad and beautiful about the contrast between the delicate features and the mask of blue and gold. Each tiny fracture painstakingly rendered. You can feel the artist's hand in the obsessive detail, but what is that labour of detail masking? What's underneath, and why hide it? Think of all the artists who’ve played with masks – Ensor, for one. Piskunov, like them, is maybe getting at the tension between what we show and what we conceal. Painting can be a kind of performance, a way of trying on different selves, different faces. It is a process of concealing and revealing that opens the viewers mind up to the endless possibilities of what a painting can be, and what feelings it can invoke.