Like many of Sanya Kantarovsky’s most engaging paintings, Mind the Gap is a tightly composed representation of a fleeting narrative. In the foreground, a woman and a dog affectionately stare into each other’s eyes. Another figure, a pouty, red-faced child, looks directly at us. It is unclear whether the man in the background, who is striding by under an archway, is fixated on the scene within the painting or bearing witness to our own spectatorship. The matrix of gazes embedded within Kantarovsky’s composition serves as a symbol of the intense dynamic that can be ingrained in a relationship, provoking feelings of total belonging or complete ownership.

Label from Menagerie: Animals on View, March 11–June 4, 2017