Boys 2006

Vlada Ralko painted "Boys" with what looks like oils, and maybe some other stuff mixed in, though it's hard to tell for sure. The faces and bodies are built up with fleshy pinks and reds, punctuated by swipes of darker pigment. There's this real sense of process, of trying to find the image in the paint, that I love. Look at how Ralko has worked the surface – areas of thin wash meet thick impasto, so the texture becomes part of the image. It's like the paint itself is enacting the figures. There's one spot, just below the main figure's chest, where the color shifts to this almost ghostly grey. It's a total contrast to the warmth around it, and really draws your eye. This kind of raw, expressive figuration reminds me of Francis Bacon, especially how he captured the vulnerability of the human form. Ultimately, Ralko’s painting exists in that space between representation and abstraction, where the meaning is never fixed.