The Garden of Earthly Pleasures, Opus # 8 2016

The late Alexander Roitburd made this painting, "The Garden of Earthly Pleasures, Opus #8," with a shadowy palette, punctuated by bright marks like neon streetlights in the dead of night. I can imagine him building it up, maybe scratching into the surface, a push-and-pull, till images start to emerge. It’s like Roitburd is inviting us into a bizarre theatre. We see a figure climbing a ladder towards a strange, dangling fruit, while another, more spectral form hovers nearby. I wonder if he felt like he was staging a dream, grabbing images from his subconscious? Look how the raw energy of the marks create a dynamic tension, it makes you feel the effort, the searching. It's like he's saying, "Here's what I've got—now, what do you see?" It's the kind of painting that keeps the conversation going, across time and space.