Artist and 3 D Model 2017

Alexander Roitburd painted 'Artist and 3 D Model' using oil on canvas. The piece is bathed in a warm, almost feverish light, created with countless tiny brushstrokes. It's like Roitburd built this scene up layer by layer. Look at the floor, how the red spreads, broken by the small touches of muted green, like moss between paving stones. It reminds me of Bonnard, but cranked up with an almost hallucinatory intensity. Roitburd gives us an artist painting a model, but the model isn’t flesh and blood, she’s a digital rendering. The artist is bathed in more muted tones, his flesh ashen, almost as if the artist himself is becoming more like the bust in the corner. Everything is touched with a slight feeling of unease and anxiety. The digital model is not present, just a ghost in the machine. I love how Roitburd plays with these ideas of reality and representation. It feels like he’s asking us, “What’s real anymore?"