Agora: Form and substance

The horses depicted in Carlos Ignacio Sanchez Vegas' paintings are dignified and splendid, creatures reminiscent of the famous Qin dynasty terracotta steeds, or of Picasso's brave Spanish bullfighters.  In Sanchez Vegas' works the horse is a symbol of grace and power; his images are representations not so much of the living, corporeal creature, but of the ideal or allegorical beast with vacuous eyes and the perfectly sculpted body, static and stately as a marble monument or mythic idol.  In some of his works, Sanchez Vegas uses vivid primary colors, augmenting the simple nobility of the image with broad, saturated color fields, a rich layering of paint and bold brushstrokes that outline the horses' voluptuous profiles.  In other pieces the colors are deep and earthy, compositions of smoldering scarlet, clay-brown and shadowy green.  With curving contours both fluid and precise, Sanchez Vegas' horses are elegant and sculptural in form, an homage to the historical heroic beast of war and of work, an animal at once volatile, versatile, and venerated

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