Air battle 1992

'Air battle' by Oleg Holosiy is a pretty big painting, almost 2 by 3 meters. When you stand in front of this thing, you can see how he’s built it up from loose, washy blues and greys, with these darting shapes emerging that look like fighter planes. You can tell that the artist is feeling his way through the process, making adjustments, maybe even wiping away parts that weren’t working. I wonder what it must have been like, alone in his studio, trying to capture something as fleeting and terrifying as a dogfight. You know, the sky is all smudged and blended, but then these hard-edged forms cut through it. It's like he’s thinking about not just the planes, but the whole environment of conflict and the drama of the scene. It's hard not to think about other artists—the futurists, for instance—who were obsessed with speed, movement, and machinery. We’re all in this conversation, bouncing ideas off each other, trying to make sense of the world through paint.