“Rakes & Fakes”

Dimensions: 60” x 44.25”

Medium: Oil on shaped canvas

Artist: Greg Busch

At first glance, it’s indulgent. Opulent. Almost cinematic. But look closer, and Rakes & Fakes begins to fracture—not just visually, but psychologically. Greg Busch, ever the visual saboteur, severs the scene with a violent horizontal abstraction: a censor bar, a glitch, a dare. It cuts through the illusion like a knife, calling into question not just the moment, but the people within it.

This isn’t a painting about elegance—it’s about exposure. Beneath the flirtation and finery lies a quiet critique: of power, of pretension, of the roles we perform to be desired, accepted, or envied. Busch plays with the language of 18th-century excess, but loads it with 21st-century skepticism.

It’s a masquerade in oil, and the masks are slipping.