Catchers (right part of the diptych) 1992

Vasiliy Ryabchenko created this oil painting "Catchers" with these beautiful cool blues and reds and yellows. You can see that the act of painting itself—the brushstrokes, the way the colors blend—creates a sense of depth and movement, like the artist was intuitively feeling his way through the composition. I can imagine Ryabchenko experimenting and trying to find a way of representing figures in ambiguous landscapes. I see the figures and the fish, and the torch in the man’s hand. I see the cloud with babies in it... The paint looks quite thin in parts which gives it a translucent, ethereal feeling. The lines in the fish communicate the idea of movement. There is a real sense of play with this work. Ryabchenko is in an ongoing conversation with the history of painting, riffing off different forms and styles in a way that’s inspiring. What do you think? Can you feel the energy of the artist as he made his marks on the canvas?