Indianapolis, IN
What to paint can be a struggle for an artist to figure out. Many are compelled more by the desire to set brush and medium to canvas than by the need to depict something specific. I’m guessing this might be the case for Simona Buna, a professional photographer who recently returned to painting in oils, and whose pictures currently present the tried-and-true subjects of flowers, horses and landscapes, each set against a blurry background of streaks or patches composed of the same color palette used for the foreground. The flora and fauna are lovely enough, as they can’t help but be, yet what truly stands out are the places where something less obviously scenic occurs: clumpy peach paint for a bouquet bloom, an odd orange splotch at the side of a horse’s head, the rectangular scrapes that indicate windows in a skyscraper. These small unexpected instances of paint being inarguably paint, while also being the thing it illustrates, are one of the great pleasures of painting—to more of them!
—Lori Waxman 2019-04-30 10:50 AM