Composition. Still Life with a Coffee Pot 1959

Valerii Lamakh made this still life painting with a coffee pot, we don't know exactly when, but it's this interesting mix of representation and abstraction. I love to imagine the act of painting, especially in a piece like this – the artist circling the canvas, maybe stepping back, squinting, and then diving back in with another stroke. The coffee pot sits as a central figure, but then look how the darks and lights collide; it's like a dance of intention and accident. You can see the push and pull of the brush, the thick impasto in places, and the way the colours almost argue with each other, you can feel the artist searching. Painting is always a conversation, a painter is always talking to painters of the past, looking, stealing and arguing with the language of paint. Each brushstroke is a thought made visible, it is the artist's embodied expression, full of doubts, hopes, and a willingness to see where the painting might lead.