Europe + Africa 1993

Dmytro Kavsan created this painting, "Europe + Africa," layering images of European gothic architecture with the animals of Africa, and what looks like a figure too. There's a lot going on, isn't there? I can imagine Kavsan in his studio, shuffling images, maybe postcards, thinking about juxtaposition, distance and closeness, using thin layers of paint that allow the image to both emerge and recede. There's real energy here. A lion seems to be leaping out from a band of orange. I wonder if the artist was thinking about European colonial history and how that impacted Africa? What I love about painting is how one image sits on top of another, creating a sense of depth and time. Artists build on top of the past and they continue the conversation, and the conversation changes meaning and form each and every time. Painting is just one big unruly, beautiful, and on-going conversation.