The fifth season 2017

Andrey Remnev made this painting, The fifth season, layering oil on canvas to build a world that feels both familiar and dreamlike. Look at the bold blues and reds against that shimmering gold – it’s like a Byzantine icon got lost in a fairy tale! Remnev’s handling of paint is fascinating. It's smooth and deliberate, creating these flat, graphic shapes that somehow still feel soft and organic. Notice the way he paints the wings, they're almost cartoonish, but also weirdly elegant, like a stencil cut from a Matisse. Then, little details, like the climbing roses and the faces, feel almost photographic. It’s this tension between flatness and depth, abstraction and representation, that makes Remnev so compelling. He reminds me a little of Paula Rego in his creation of uncanny worlds and ambiguous narratives. Neither of them are giving us simple answers, but inviting us to get lost in the process of looking.