Ascendant American artist Louis Fratino makes emotive paintings of the male body, from portraits and self-portraits to tender depictions of couples in a variety of scenarios, ranging from the mundane to the graphically intimate. The result, in the words of his gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co., “is a body of work that is a loving and honest expression of the contemporary gay experience”. This beautiful piece, titled Me and Ray, is typical of Fratino’s naturalistic yet stylised approach, with a close attention to surface and colour, which has drawn comparison to that of Picasso.
