Moulin Rouge 1980

Vytautas Kasiulis made this fantastically vibrant painting, Moulin Rouge, with what looks like oil on canvas, and you can almost smell the turpentine and linseed. The quickness of the line suggests a process of constant looking and reacting, not unlike my own. I love how the characters jostle and dance, with a thick impasto of color that gives them a life of their own. Check out that figure in the center, the one with the blue jacket and the wild, almost frantic expression, the way the paint is layered so thickly, it feels like it's almost a sculpture. This kind of mark-making, it's not just about representation, it's about the physicality of the medium, the sheer joy of applying paint to canvas. Kasiulis reminds me of someone like Kirchner, with the brashness of his palette and the dynamic energy of his figures. But ultimately, he's doing his own thing, inviting us to get lost in his Moulin Rouge. There's a sense of ongoing experimentation, of art as a conversation that never really ends.