Warning 1986

Ivan Marchuk’s painting, “Warning,” is made with oil paint in a style that seems to want to warn us about...well, maybe everything? The first thing I see is the mark making. It’s like a nervous system has been laid bare, all twitchy lines and textured surfaces. The colors are muted, almost monochromatic, which adds to the sense of unease. It’s as if he’s built the whole thing up from tiny, frantic marks. There is this part in the center that looks like faces, or maybe skulls, emerging from the chaos. The paint is so thick there, you can almost feel the weight of it. This isn’t just about depicting something; it’s about the act of painting itself, the struggle to make sense of the world through texture and line. Marchuk reminds me of Alfred Kubin, who also embraced the weird and unsettling. It feels like an urgent message, a reminder that art can be a way to confront the things that scare us.