Alexander Soskin (b 1974, London) completed a foundation course at Camberwell Art College before moving to Los Angeles to follow a career in film. In 2020, just after lockdown, Soskin returned to the UK with his family and commenced painting a dynamic series of works on paper that emerged after a period of years working as a film and television editor.  Developing from both a practical and intuitive sense of what needs highlighting and what remains hidden when building a narrative, Soskin began to spend less time working in a digital medium with moving images, and more with the analogue, through the painted still. Noticing things, and how they fit together, was part of his job; and yet the fabrication of stories requires omission, and what we chose to ignore persists.

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His work is largely on paper or wood using pencil, gouache, ink and watercolour. Rendered in vivid colours that have been subjected to a process of desaturation, his work captures energy, celebratory, almost carnivalesque elements, which spark joy and inspire action. Characters are as entertaining as they are provocative as Soskin blends the absurd and strange with the everyday. Capturing characters seen in the street, glimpsed once through a doorway, or repeatedly on a commute, Soskin responds, through paint, to the world around him. Embellished in costumes, transfigured into mythological creatures or deities, or simply reimagined in another world, figures become emblematic of a subtext which is suggested through letters, glyphs and symbols used in repeating patterns. They’re highly detailed and Alex enlists some of the fundamentals of editing, yoking things together to create emotional impact. These works become not only about looking, but an exercise in discovering what we choose not to see and why.

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The process begins on 300gsm hand made paper from Italy. Soskin outlines forms in pencil which are then infilled with gouache paint and, crucially, avoiding paint over the pencil lines. Once the picture plane is complete, he brushes different colour inks over the entire work, which are then rapidly washed off with water. Running off all the painted areas, deep areas of colour remain where the pencil lines were. It’s a very live and slightly terrifying moment, almost performative in nature, it forces fast, intuitive decisions. In addition to outlining forms, the inks also create shadow and tone. The process is both intense and somewhat unpredictable, like the way a glaze is formed under heat inside the kiln, and elegantly mirrors the narrative; by subjecting each work to a moment of potential catastrophe, what emerges is an image that correlates with the strange beauty and unpredictable magic of everyday life.

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This departure from the construction of a narrative through a sequence of moving images as a television editor, to the fantastic still demonstrates a profound shift in Soskin’s awareness. Rather than carrying on at breakneck speed, past all we try not to see, he chose to slow down and acknowledge those who were being left behind. One might say that this change of pace allowed the artist to move from pure narrative into portraiture.

 

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