People from the space 2005

Endre Bartos imagined ‘People from the Space’ with oil on canvas. I feel like Bartos might have been smiling when he made this painting. He's having fun with the push-pull of flat color against these oddly-shaped figures. Look how confidently he's outlined those forms, filling them in with bright, happy pinks, greens and oranges. The paint is applied pretty thinly, but those outlines are so clear. It’s like he’s saying, “Here they are, my space people!” I imagine him stepping back, maybe tilting his head, and then adding those squiggly lines in the grass, a spontaneous gesture. Bartos is part of a longer conversation painters have been having for centuries – how can we represent our world, real or imagined, on a flat surface? How do we play with color, line, and form to communicate feeling? He keeps it direct and lively and leaves us with a piece of his playful thinking.