Thomias Radin L'élévation, 2021

L'élévation, 2022, is an oil painting on linen.

The painting is centered on a figure whose wide back and forearms dominate the width of the work, while its legs are covered in beige pants made of a draped fabric. The figure might be read most quickly as masculine for the detailed musculature and size of their limbs. However, we only see the back of the figure’s head and Radin thus keeps the person’s gender ambiguous. Around the figure there is a swirl of wind or clouds as well as carefully rendered jellyfish and leaves, which are nearly transparent. The figure is posed mid-stride and below them is a green river winding through loosely rendered mountains.

The title, in English “elevation,” suggests that the figure is perhaps liberating itself from the world in which ominous green waters flow, and towards the clear blue sky that we see in the upper right corner of the canvas. As in many of Radin’s works, there are parts of the canvas that are unprimed and unpainted, as well as a section to the lower right in which the artist uses energetic expressive brushstrokes to capture a trace of his own movement across the canvas. In these sections and in the gesture of the body one can see the influence of Radin’s background as a dancer of Hip Hopand Gwo Ka, a traditional dance of the Caribbean island Guadeloupe.