LE PETIT CHIEN ROUGE 2018

Aboudia made "Le Petit Chien Rouge" sometime in his career, and it's like a burst of raw energy, a playground of the soul rendered in paint. The color palette is bold, almost clashing, but somehow it all sings together. It’s like he’s not just painting what he sees, but how he feels. Look at how the figures are rendered. They’re not precise, but they’re full of life. You can see the urgency in each stroke. Thick, thin, transparent, opaque – it’s all there, a testament to the physicality of paint itself. The little red dog in the front is the star, all jagged edges and intense color. It feels vulnerable, but also defiant, like a child’s drawing imbued with adult emotion. Aboudia reminds me a bit of Jean-Michel Basquiat, in their shared interest in a kind of urban folklore. But while Basquiat had a certain cool detachment, Aboudia is all heart. He embraces the ambiguity, the messiness, the sheer, unbridled joy of making.