The Old Virgins Plodding through the Winter Garden in Arles 2011

Alexander Roitburd made this painting called 'The Old Virgins Plodding through the Winter Garden in Arles' and it's pure poetry, pure feeling. I imagine him in the studio, wrestling with these images, one by one, letting them find their place on the black ground. You can see the layering – a lamb, cups, and a crucifix, not to mention the spaghetti-like, nervous energy of his lines that tie it all together. Are they trudging or floating? It’s heavy with art history, like Van Gogh by way of de Kooning. Roitburd is asking us to consider what it means to carry the past into the present. It's dark, but there is also humour. Just look at how those lines wriggle and squirm. This painting is a history painting in a way, like a personal history, it reflects on life, death, and everything in between, so that it can be transformed, and hopefully reborn.