Electronic Eurus 2015

Stepan Ryabchenko made Electronic Eurus with what looks like digital tools – a totally different kind of brush than I'm used to. It’s like a confection, a swirl of pastel colours and playful lines that seem to leap off the surface. I imagine Ryabchenko in his studio, surrounded by screens, coaxing these shapes into being, one digital brushstroke at a time. The way the forms twist and turn reminds me of Baroque sculpture, but also cartoons. I’m thinking of other artists who play with digital space, like Jacolby Satterwhite or even some of the video game designers I’ve seen at festivals. There’s a real conversation happening here, a back-and-forth between the physical and the virtual, the historical and the contemporary. It's a reminder that artists are always in dialogue, building on each other's ideas, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be, even when it’s not exactly paint!