An essay by Elaine Smollin on the recent work of Sandro Chia, currently on view at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York through May 25, 2014.

Smollin writes: "Chia has been acutely aware of the mythical conditions that imbue modern existence while associated with the Transavanguardia movement and as a singular actor in the perpetuation of the painted image… Can playful figurative paintings be political? They certainly carry societal histories… The purposeful naiveté in the execution of these works evoke a spontaneity we can trace to the fundamental experience of cinema. Each of these small painted works operates as a continuum, not unlike our participation in the one-frame experience of film that incrementally connects our subliminal awareness to an unfolding eternal narrative. We the author create the needed trajectory of Chia’s figures to a broad folly of becoming that is irresistible to the wanderer."