Jeux d'infants 1971

Dado made this nightmarish oil painting, "Jeux d'infants", with what looks like a lot of turpentine, maybe some stand oil too. It's a really thin, washy kind of paint application, almost like he's staining the canvas. You know, when you're making a painting, sometimes the process takes over, like you're just responding to the material. I think that's what's going on here. Look at the way he's built up these translucent layers, how the blues and whites blend into each other. It's like looking into some kind of watery grave. The figures are rendered with this incredible detail, but they're also kind of dissolving, disintegrating. It’s the abject that comes to mind, this is no leisurely swim, but more like being plunged into the Uncanny. It reminds me of Francis Bacon, but even more grotesque, more disturbing. Dado is taking us somewhere really dark, really uncomfortable, and yet, there’s this strange beauty in the way he’s doing it. It's proof that paintings can embrace ambiguity, and allow us to feel multiple things at once.