The Hotel, 2008

Alex Kanevsky is a Russian figurative painter known for his fragmented and ghost-like impressionist style. I've always admired impressionist studies for the apparent speed of their conception, with purposeful, economical brush strokes used to simplify complex forms. Kanevsky's work is interesting because it retains that same appearance of urgency while also looking very carefully smoothed and rendered.

And indeed his process is actually very drawn out as he tries again and again to discover the right amount of fluidity in his paintings. Layers form from his repeated attempts. "I work fast, trying to hit the right note every time," he says. "That is nearly impossible, so I constantly fail. But I keep coming back to a painting. It accumulates layers, each one more or less a complete painting. Complete but failed." Some extensive work-in-progress pictures of this process can be seen here. I'm surprised by how often he will revisit a near-complete piece and change it, only to quickly return to his previous vision. The back-and-forth of these slight alterations seem like the inhaling and exhaling of the painting.

T.S. in Her Bath, 2002

The effect of all these built up layers is an impression of movement, which can easily be felt in Kanevsky's offset shapes and blurring. Motion is very important to the artist, who believes the key to depicting humans naturally is to represent their inability to sit still; unlike inanimate objects which are defined by shapes, people are "defined by their motion." The fluidity of his work is very impressive to me as well as his ability to paint loosely or tightly as needed.