Detail 2015

Saul Zanolari created 'Detail' in 2015, with digital software, which immediately makes me wonder about the labor of it. I'm imagining Zanolari, hunched over a screen, guiding his stylus through a virtual space. The figures have a certain Renaissance heft to them, but their poses and the bizarre framing devices—part organic, part architectural—give the whole thing an otherworldly feel. There’s a surreal quality, like a dream logic where bodies and spaces morph into each other. Look at the way the figures interact: a seated woman, a couple in an embrace, and some kind of celestial being below. Zanolari is playing with classical themes but filtering them through a contemporary lens. It reminds me a little of the way other artists are currently sampling art history, appropriating the masters while making something totally new. Painting is like an ongoing game of telephone, where artists riff off each other across time, creating new voices through an echo of the past.