Corpses are my Business 1961

Victor Prezio painted ‘Corpse’s are my Business’ in oil, and it’s… well it’s really something. The colour story is mostly burnt umber, ochre and a shock of orange flames. Just imagine Prezio making this, stepping back, squinting, maybe muttering, layering on those browns and then BAM! A burst of cadmium red-orange to cut through it all. I feel for him, trying to balance the horror with some kind of visual punch. It’s like he’s saying, ‘I see you, painters who came before me. I’m wrestling with the same stuff – how to make something meaningful out of paint’. Look at how those fiery brushstrokes dance around the central figure, almost like a halo, yet they're also devouring him. The paint isn’t super thick, but there’s a definite texture, a kind of roughness that adds to the immediacy. Painters are always in dialogue, a long conversation across time and space. We’re all just trying to figure out how to make marks that mean something, even if we don’t quite know what that something is.