Acrylic paint and concrete, vinyl and fibre on canvas mounted on aluminium

200 x 150 x 2.5 cm

Sun Set Down is part of Latifa Echakhch’s ongoing series under the same name, as well as an extension of her site-specific installation Cross Fade (2020). Reminiscent of classical representations of the sky in Renaissance frescoes, Echakhch paints a sunset over a layer of concrete, only to vigorously scrape against the concrete such that chunks of the artwork disappear, along with the artist’s painterly gesture. These chunks can only be completed with the viewer’s imagination, and so their assumptions follow: has something been lost? Or has it developed? Echakhch thus offers viewers multiple pathways in continuing the artwork with their mind’s eye, such that one could see the work’s destruction to the end, or restore it to completion. Juxtaposing the violence of deconstruction against the romantic harmony of the painting’s form, Echakhch spotlights the tensions existing between exaltation and menace, while also giving a more sensual perspective to conceptual art.