Don't, Seryozha 1991

Oleg Holosiy made "Don't, Seryozha" with oil on canvas, and you can see how the physicality of the medium really shines through. I mean, look at how Holosiy builds up this hazy, dreamlike surface. The textures range from smooth to crusty, like he was wrestling with the paint itself. The way the figure is rendered makes you wonder what tool he was using? Was it a brush? A rag? Some kind of squeegee? It's like the paint is trying to tell a story all on its own, a story of process and creation. Then, there's the color. That moody palette makes the figures glow with a haunted, spectral quality. Holosiy reminds me a little of Goya, in the way he embraced the darker aspects of the human condition, and explored the space where human feeling becomes unmoored from reason. Art's not about easy answers, right? It's about embracing the questions, the ambiguities, the stuff that makes you go, "Hmm, what's really going on here?"