Pensare 2020

Timur Akhriev made ‘Pensare’ with oil, and you can see the paint handling is all about process, about the doing. The blues here feel almost like a bruise, or maybe a midnight swim, and set the stage for a figure bathed in a sort of mournful sunlight. I keep coming back to the way the paint is applied – thick in some spots, almost scrubbed on, especially around the figure’s outline. It's like Akhriev is wrestling with the form, trying to pin down something elusive. The way the dark strokes define the robe, it’s less about depicting fabric and more about a dance between light and shadow. That tension, that unresolved quality, is what makes the piece so compelling. It reminds me of late works by Manet, where the impression is favored over detail, but it could be anyone, really. I mean, isn't that what art is all about? A conversation, a constant back-and-forth, where meaning isn't fixed but always in flux.