Sitting 1991

Oleg Holosiy’s ‘Sitting’, of unspecified date and medium, is a square of painted surface, where dark, almost monochromatic gestures conjure a figure in a room. I imagine Holosiy circling the canvas, building up layers, scraping back, adding dark upon dark. It’s a painting of moody, intimate moments. The way he builds up the blacks and browns, it’s like he's trying to paint the feeling of being alone with your thoughts, in a dimly lit space, maybe with a book and a drink. There’s a lot of heavy, wet-on-wet marks in this painting, which gives it a sense of immediacy. Maybe Holosiy was thinking about Rembrandt, or Goya, or other painters who used darkness to create mood and atmosphere. Artists are always in conversation with each other, across time and space. Painting becomes a way of asking questions, of exploring the possibilities of perception and feeling. The beauty of painting lies in its open-endedness. There’s no one right answer.