Blue Parrot, Mother's Bliss 2019

Cristiano Tassinari painted this “Blue Parrot, Mother's Bliss,” with who-knows-what, it doesn’t really matter, it’s what he *did* with it that counts. The painting’s got this great, slightly awkward energy, where the parrot is both there and not-there. Check out the way the paint is kind of scrubbed into the canvas. It’s thin, but there’s a lot of visible texture, it’s really worked. And it's all about process, all about how it gets done, it’s visible. The funny thing is, all the marks build up to this cohesive scene, but you could equally see it dissolving in front of you. I love the way he’s handled the glass the bird sits on, all smudgy and semi-transparent. This feels like a nod to Giorgio Morandi’s still lives, but with an added layer of playful weirdness. Both painters know how to make humble objects appear monumental and kind of strange. Art's just one long conversation, right? In the end, we’re all just adding our own little twist to the story.