Body by Jake 1988

Mark Kostabi made "Body by Jake" in 1988, and it is a painting which is all about the interplay between black and white, light and shadow, and hard and soft edges. The first thing that strikes me is its smoothness, the almost airbrushed quality of the gradations between tones. It looks so clean. This kind of rendering is interesting. Take the area where the legs seem to loop around each other. The way the light falls makes them feel almost like separate, sculptural elements, slotted together. And what’s that cone shape that slices through the center? Kostabi reminds me a little of Giorgio de Chirico, actually, with the way he creates these enigmatic, dreamlike spaces. I guess you could say his art is about the human condition, but in a way that's open to all kinds of interpretations. Art's not about answers, right? More about keeping the conversation going.