Alternative Solution 1988

Dmytro Kavsan made this painting, Alternative Solution, with what looks like oil on canvas, and right away, you notice the earthy browns and bold brushstrokes. The texture here is so alive – Kavsan isn't hiding anything; the materiality of the paint is right there in front of you. It's like he's wrestling with the medium, pushing it around to find the image. Then there is the bright white area, maybe a wing, painted with dynamic strokes which add to the emotional feeling that the work evokes. Look at the way that turquoise blue is dabbed on as an accent; it suggests an alternative way to see the earthiness in the rest of the piece, a flash of something hopeful and new. It reminds me a bit of some of Guston’s later works, in the way it makes something new out of something old, a sort of conversation with the past. It invites us to reflect on how art can be an ongoing search, where meaning shifts and settles, never quite fixed.