Favorite 2015

Andrey Remnev created "Favorite", and it feels like it could have been painted at any time, with its own dreamlike logic. You see this flattening of space, right? It pushes everything up to the surface, like how we remember things. The texture is smooth, airbrushed even, which gives it this odd, hyper-real quality. Check out the dress, those stripes are so even, but then there are these little birds, almost like stickers, disrupting the perfection. They bring this element of play and surprise, kind of like when you're trying to be serious, but a joke pops into your head. It reminds me a little of Balthus, this sense of timelessness, mixed with a touch of the absurd. You start to wonder, is it a painting or a staged photograph? This piece is an ongoing conversation about how we see, how we remember, and how art can hold space for all these slippery, contradictory feelings.