Let's take a balloon 1991

Oleg Holosiy made 'Let's Take a Balloon', and, well, it really dives into that playful space, doesn't it? The colors and the way he’s put the paint on really tells you he's thinking about what it means to *make* a painting. Look at the figure reclining in the centre, how the gray paint is layered to create a feeling of depth and texture. Holosiy's clearly not trying to hide his process here. See the balloon floating overhead? It gives this sense of upward movement that really lifts the whole scene. Holosiy reminds me a little of Philip Guston, who also wasn’t afraid to mix the personal with the universal, the serious with the absurd. Like Guston, he invites us to consider art as a journey without a fixed destination, full of unexpected turns and ambiguous signs. It's like he's saying, “Let’s not take ourselves too seriously, but let’s also not forget the power of imagination.”