Still Life in Cross! 1993

Dmytro Kavsan made this painting, "Still Life in Cross!," and it feels like a complex puzzle worked out in oil paint, a tight grid fighting against lush representation. I'm imagining Kavsan starting with a traditional still life, maybe fruit in a bowl, a vase, and then laying those dark rectangles over the top. Each block feels like a choice, a deliberate obscuring. What's hidden becomes as important as what's revealed, right? The turquoise cross peeks out from beneath. It’s not just about seeing; it’s about thinking about seeing, thinking about what the artist wants us to see. The texture is thick in places, thin in others, like the history of the painting is right there on the surface. Kavsan reminds me of other artists like Josef Albers or Agnes Martin in his use of a grid structure, and even to some still-life painters like Giorgio Morandi, but with a twist. He is asking questions about seeing, about the interplay between abstraction and representation. Artists riff off each other, you know? It’s an ongoing conversation.