Black Sitting 1989

Oleg Holosiy made this painting, Black Sitting, with what looks like oil on canvas, but you can see the process, the hand of the artist right there on the surface. The yellow seeps through the black, creating this hazy, dreamlike space. The figures are these dark, almost monstrous shapes, but they're also clearly human. It's this push and pull, you know? The way the paint is applied so thick in some areas and then scraped away in others, it feels like a struggle to make something solid out of something so fleeting. Look at the way the black paint drips down, almost like tears, it's a kind of raw emotion, a vulnerability that's hard to look away from. It reminds me a little bit of Francis Bacon, that same sense of unease and the body as something fragile and broken. Holosiy wasn't afraid to embrace the mess, the ambiguity, and that’s what makes it so powerful.