La fortune et le jeune enfant. 2019

Carlos Sablòn made this painting, La fortune et le jeune enfant, using oil paint, in what feels like a completely intuitive way. The muted colors and old-fashioned rendering give it an outsider-ish, folk-art kind of vibe, as if he were discovering painting for the first time. There's a softness to the whole thing. Like looking through a fogged lens, it is a very material painting. You can see the blending of the paint in the sky, the dragging of the brush across the statue, and the details of the well with its delicate floral design. The whole thing is a bit dreamlike, the little baby looks as though he is reaching for a star or maybe just the water. The way the artist uses light and shadow makes me think of Corot, that sense of quiet observation and making poetry out of the everyday, but then there's that weird little baby, too, like a neo-pop interruption, a completely different vibe. It's like Sablòn is in conversation with the art of the past.