Plato 2020

Luis Álvarez Roure created this painting, called Plato, with oil paint. I love the off-whiteness here. The careful way the artist has built up thin layers of paint, allowing the texture of the canvas to peek through, creates a visual field that shimmers with subtle variations in tone. I bet the artist felt quite meditative, almost humble, working on this. It's like he's saying, "Hey, even the simplest things—a plain white plate—can be profound if you really look." I imagine him stepping back, squinting, adding another dab of paint, then another, trying to capture the essence of this everyday object. The plate feels like a stand-in for bigger themes. It recalls Giorgio Morandi’s paintings of bottles. In the end, art-making is a long game, a conversation across time, with painters encouraging each other to see the world anew. It’s not about having all the answers, but about embracing the questions.