Not a Day without Haloimes 2010

Alexander Roitburd made this painting, “Not a Day without Haloimes,” with what looks like thick, luscious oil paint. I'm getting a sense of dark humor, you know? I can imagine Roitburd in his studio, maybe in Odessa, layering these browns and blacks, building up the texture. The figure on the unicycle, hiding behind the book - is he shy, defiant, or both? The book seems to be a shield, and it totally obscures any sense of who he is. I wonder, did Roitburd see himself in this character? That unicycle wheel—it's like a symbol of balance, or maybe the impossibility of it. He's teetering on the edge, while those two figures down below have their backs to us; they are a kind of audience, but maybe they don't know what's going on either. Roitburd, like other painters, leaves us with questions rather than answers, and I like that a lot.