|
|
| Robert Horvath (Gallery One) |
|  |
|
Robert Horvath's recent work continues his output of decadent, high-calorie paintings. The beautiful young urbanites that serve as his subjects are still dripping with a shameless vanity as they taunt, tempt, and tease their viewers from within radiantly hued monochrome colorscapes. Horvath's classical oil-painting technique is usually comprised of thirty layers or more and the resulting luminosity is indebted as much to Caravaggio as it is to glossy Prada ads. This painstaking glazing appropriately references the narcissism of his subjects as layer upon layer is applied to the sleek surface as if masking the subjects' ubiquitous attempts to manufacture a desire that is as wholly seductive as it is unattainable; these images find us painfully aware of our guilty cravings. Many of us secretly desire the fantasy of Horvath's hipster subjects - to be with them, to be one of them, to possess that detached and knowing confidence only found frozen on glossy pages. Horvath transforms that hallucination of empty glamour into something oddly palpable.
|
|
|
