Sunset Tango II 2018

Michael Cheval painted "Sunset Tango II" without a known date using oils. The sky is all warm colours, oranges, reds, fading into deep blues, while the Tango dancers wear costumes of harlequin green and coral orange. The faces and masks are really intriguing in their emotional neutrality. There’s a real contrast between the smooth, almost glassy finish of the figures and the more textured depiction of the waves and beach. The figures look like porcelain dolls, but then that water looks so wet and wild! It's really compelling. The detail in the woman's dress is remarkable – each fold and pattern rendered with painstaking precision. I can imagine Cheval must have spent hours on this passage alone, and it draws you in – especially because the dress blends with the sea, as though her and nature are one. It reminds me a little of Delvaux, who also delighted in these juxtapositions of time and space, yet Cheval has a style all of his own. In the end, art is about playing with ideas and making connections – it's up to us to decide what they mean.