Roundup, 2025

Igor Galan  

In The Roundup (2025), Igor Galan reimagines the medieval grotesque for a modern audience. This 50x60 cm oil painting is a timeless allegory of fear, control, and collective cruelty. Inspired by the narrative density of Hieronymus Bosch, Galan populates his scene with monstrous hybrids and twisted human figures engaged in a chaotic act of capture.

The central struggle – a horned captor overpowering a man – is surrounded by other participants whose faces are contorted in mockery or rage. In the distance, a nuclear explosion stains the sky, amplifying the sense that the violence we witness is part of a much larger, unstoppable force. The absence of a fixed time or location allows the painting to speak to any moment in history when power hunts the vulnerable.

Galan's palette of bruised violets, acid yellows, and crimson shadows lends a theatrical beauty to the brutality, encouraging the viewer to confront both their fascination and discomfort. This is an artwork that moves beyond satire into the realm of myth, delivering a warning as old as humanity itself.