Bare Spectrum 2022

Vincent Xeus made this painting, "Bare Spectrum," with oils, though I don't know when. It looks like a painting that's about painting, about how to remake an image that's already an image. I love the way the planes of color sort of disrupt our reading of the original source - you can see the Vermeer influence clearly. Look at that smear of bright blue across the top of the canvas. It’s like Xeus is grabbing the painting and yanking it into the present. It doesn't fully obscure the source, but definitely stains and undermines it. The ghostly quality of the figure, combined with the interruption of the planes, makes me think of Francis Bacon's ghostly figures. Though, where Bacon is all angst, Xeus is all ghostly and ephemeral. It's the painterly equivalent of a half-remembered dream.