Initium 2021

Michael Cheval made this painting, Initium, with a kind of surrealist approach to portraiture. It's like he's building up layers of meaning through the colors and the way he applies the paint. What strikes me is the surface quality; it feels almost like looking at a fresco, with that slightly aged, textured feel, and the way the gold paint seems to both catch and reflect light. There's this one spot right above the woman's head where the blue peeks through the gold—it's like a little window into another world. The hair is so striking. Is that really made of cogs? In a way, this relates to art's broader history, echoing the Renaissance portraits but giving it this utterly contemporary, dreamlike twist. It's a bit Magritte, a bit Dali, but with its own unique sensibility. It reminds us that art is always in conversation with itself.