Stratis Doukas 1924

Spyros Papaloukas painted 'Stratis Doukas' with oil on canvas, and it feels like a wrestling match with the paint itself. The ochre palette gives everything a sun-baked, almost feverish quality, and the surface is alive with these visible brushstrokes. You can almost feel the push and pull of the artist's hand, figuring out the shape of the face, the shadows under the eyes. There's this incredible tension between the materiality of the paint, thick in some areas, scraped back in others, and the vulnerability of the human form. Look at the way Papaloukas renders the stubble on Doukas's chin – just a scumble of darker pigment that adds a tactile roughness. You can see echoes of Cezanne's broken brushwork in the way he builds up the forms, but there's also a rawness, a directness that's all Papaloukas's own. It reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, a way of seeing and feeling that gets passed down, but always with a personal twist. Ultimately, the painting reminds us that a portrait can be an attempt to capture a likeness, but it's also about the pure joy and struggle of making something out of nothing.