Sagittarius 2019

Camilla d’Errico's 'Sagittarius', from the 20th century, presents a dreamy centaur figure adorned with butterflies, painted in a world of swirling pastels. I can imagine d’Errico building up this image layer by layer, trying to find the sweet spot between representation and imagination, between girl and horse. Those pastel colours feel like they are breathing. Look at the ground the figure is standing on; it's not stable but a kind of liquified, swirling, marbleized surface, with the colours bleeding into each other in the most delicious way. D’Errico, like many painters, has looked to other sources of inspiration in history. I am reminded of the surreal dreamscapes of the early 20th-century painter Giorgio de Chirico, yet she updates it with an anime twist! It's like she's saying that painting can be anything it wants to be, any combination of styles, any mashup of dream and reality. Painters are always looking at other painters' work and borrowing, stealing, or riffing. And I think that openness to exchange is what keeps the conversation going.