Borsoto’s focus seems to dwell somewhere on the periphery of his personal world of home and studio and the outer community and society. Like his cohorts, personas inhabit his canvases, but in his case they tend to be portrayals of neighbors or fellow artists, or self-portrayals in a number of instances.

Borsoto’s compositional approach to his subject matter results in an almost dreamlike quality to his paintings. He achieves this through an interlaying of images, as well as a mixture of stylistic devices that include monochromatic treatments, various deconstructive techniques, as well as his trademark vivid portraiture. Borsoto also transforms his drab surroundings into settings that provide an almost minimalist environment to his work, dominated by urban gray, earth tones and shadowy darkened corners.

Borsoto’s approach seems to rest on his unconventional use of perspective. Though he is willing to employ incongruous elements within the same frame, Borsoto further intensifies his vision through a manipulation of angle and depth. Thus, though his subjects sometime appear large enough to fill a frame, perhaps an acknowledgment to their capacity to overcome challenges, the forces that work against them seem to loom even larger. It can perhaps be said that Borsoto presents aspects of contemporary experience that threaten to overwhelm us; the indenturing of labor that fuels a more global appetite for growth, or a gun culture that leads to a diminishing regard for human life, for instance. As much as he wants to portray his subjects with an almost naturalistic heroism, the realities they face never seem far away. Thus, there seems at times an almost impending sense of doom in Borsoto’s portrayals, but one that is beguilingly suspended at the most perceptive moments. The result is a richness inherent in work that will continue to offer up notions beyond what can be initially perceived, a quality that can only be invested in work that strives to portray more fundamental aspects of our human nature.

-Antonio Luz, October 2008