IMAGE:29 2019

Thomas Riesner made this painting with what looks like acrylic paint on paper. Just look at that red, dripped and dabbed, like fresh blood. It's raw, visceral, and kind of makes you want to look away, right? But then you catch the underlying grey that gives the figure its depth. I can almost feel the artist wrestling with the paint, each stroke a thought, a feeling, a moment of pure expression. It's like watching a feeling take shape in real-time, a glimpse into Riesner's mind. He is wrestling with something profound. The way the red bleeds over the edges, how it interacts with the white, the very physicality of it – it all tells a story. Artists borrow and steal from one another all the time! It makes me think of Soutine or Francis Bacon. Riesner's got that same spirit, that willingness to go there, to dive deep into the uncomfortable. We're all just trying to make sense of this crazy world, one brushstroke at a time.