Thomias Radin Back to nature, 2025

Combining oil and charcoal on linen, with Back to Nature Thomias Radin, at first sight, collapses form and meaning into materiality and technique. As though the joy of skill itself was enshrined, the handmade frame tenderly holds the canvas like an altarpiece.

Furnished with ornamental cut-outs, the wooden frame hoods the canvas: from the upper right corner, taking a nosedive, a dove referencing biblical iconography intrudes the pictorial space. Unprimed and unpainted parts of the canvas appear like harbingers of blankness within a dream-like scenery, depicting agitated waves below silent and starless skies. Borne by a nightmarish spell, perhaps, the appearance of a levitating mask, sculpted from blurred layers of coffee brown, interrupts the celestial quietude. Above veined rocks of marble, an ochre colored figure falls into the frame, the left leg bended below a square shouldered back, its faceless head turned away from the viewer.