The death of the tractor operator (two sides) 1990

Oleg Holosiy made "The Death of the Tractor Operator (Two Sides)" and I am immediately drawn to how the shapes emerge from the darkness. It's like he’s coaxing them out with his brush, or maybe they’re figures from a dream that he's quickly trying to capture. The red outline on the painting is so interesting because it looks like a window frame, like he's showing us the world through his eyes. There are so many little details in here, like the animals in the top panels, or the swirling marks in the larger panel on the left, each of them add to the sense of mystery. Holosiy's painting reminds me of some of Philip Guston's later work, where the forms are both playful and kind of dark, like figures in a half-remembered cartoon. Ultimately, these paintings resist one single story, and that's what's so appealing about them, they offer an invitation into a world of imagination and ambiguity.