The Garden of Earthly Pleasures, Opus # 8 2016

Alexander Roitburd made The Garden of Earthly Pleasures in oil, and right away you can see he’s laying down some juicy strokes and letting the colours sing against this ground of deep black. I love the surface of this painting, which feels worked over, raw and unresolved. Look how the figures seem to emerge out of this darkness, formed from thick daubs of paint. Then there’s the marks he makes with lines of bright, almost neon colours. See how they sit on top of the forms, like glowing wires? The whole thing feels intuitive and improvisational. The ladder is especially good – not just as an object but as a series of marks, each one distinct and uneven. For me, Roitburd’s work shares a restless curiosity with artists like Francis Picabia, who also threw everything at the canvas to see what might happen. Painting is all about trying things out, embracing the mess, and letting the unexpected guide you.