Moment 2021

Vincent Xeus, born in 1981, painted this piece, Moment, with delicate pastel hues. It feels like the act of painting was a kind of search, a process of layering and gently wiping away. I'm imagining the studio, quiet except for the soft scrape of the brush. The artist, circling the canvas, head cocked, trying to catch the light, the essence of that elusive moment. See how the colours swim into each other, the pinks, the greens, the pale blues – creating a blurry dreamy effect! It is a bit like Gerhard Richter's blurred portraits and landscapes, where the image almost dissolves into pure paint. This way of working offers us a different way of seeing, thinking, and feeling our way into the world. It is as if Xeus invites us to embrace ambiguity, to find beauty in the incomplete, the uncertain. That’s the thing about painting; it’s a conversation, an exchange of ideas across time.