Garden at Dusk, 2024
Information about the artwork
- MaterialOil on canvas
- Dimensions279.4 x 205.7 cm
- Year of acquisition2025
- Inventory numberUAB X
- On viewOn view
- Copyright© Louis Fratino. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Neu, Berlin. Photo: Jason Wyche
More about the artwork
Louis Fratino’s paintings often depict domestic scenes in which naked male bodies appear in states of leisurely pleasure or explicit sexual encounter. "Garden at Dusk" shifts the setting outdoors, though the open air is scarcely visible. While a tall wall shields the garden on one side, Fratino nevertheless makes us voyeuristic witnesses to a private moment. The elevated, top-down perspective recalls Matissean spatial compositions and heightens the sense of secret observation. Fratino’s practice is deeply inspired by the psychological portraits of the American painter Alice Neel (1900–1984) and shows stylistic affinities ranging from Marc Chagall (1887–1985) to Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). His favored subjects are everyday moments of queer experience, sometimes incidental, which he simultaneously aestheticizes and normalizes. "My art emerges from my own daily life; I don’t hide my lived experience, my identity," he explains. "I'm happy if my work can give voice to themes that have always existed in art history. They may seem new today, but they're not. They’ve always been there—just rarely given space."
