The Beautiful Game: Alexi Torres · David Yarrow · Max Steven Grossman · Chance Cooper
Framed: 45 x 60 in
No sport has traveled further. Played in every country on earth, across every language and every century, soccer has always belonged equally to everyone, to the kid kicking a ball against a wall in Matanzas and to the 90,000 watching from the stands at the Azteca. The World Cup is the moment that belonging becomes visible all at once.
In the summer of 2026, Atlanta is a host city. Sixteen World Cup matches will be played here. The city will be transformed by the tournament's scale, its crowds, its flags, its weight of collective attention. The Beautiful Game is Carousel Fine Art's response to that moment, and to what the moment means.
Four artists. Each arrived at the sport from a different direction.
Alexi Torres was born in Matanzas, Cuba, and builds his paintings in interlaced layers of oil drawn from the weaving traditions of his agrarian upbringing; in the Game of Life series, he uses the hexagonal geometry of a soccer ball as the structural DNA for mythological figures, finding something sacred in the architecture of the game.
David Yarrow was twenty years old when he photographed Maradona at the 1986 World Cup Final in Mexico City; what he made in that moment became the third best-selling sports image of all time.
Max Steven Grossman created Soccer WC 26 specifically for this exhibition, a 100-inch composite bookshelf whose spines resolve, on closer inspection, into the names of the sport's defining legends.
Chance Cooper brings the crowd: his large-scale acrylic Lotta Life Left captures the communal energy of the World Cup in the register in which it is actually felt, not by any individual athlete, but by everyone watching together.
These works do not share a medium or a style. They share a conviction: that this game, and this moment, are worth serious attention.
The artists
Alexi Torres, Game of Life · Eight paintings on view
Born in 1976 in Bermeja, in the province of Matanzas, Torres studied at the Elemental School of Art in Matanzas and the National School of Arts in Havana before immigrating to the United States in 2003. He maintains studios in Atlanta and Zancudo, Costa Rica.
His signature technique, building each canvas from up to twenty interlaced layers of oil in a method drawn from the weaving traditions of his agrarian Cuban upbringing, finds its fullest expression in the Game of Life series.
Here, the hexagonal geometry of a soccer ball becomes the building block for mythological figures: goddesses, angels, a rearing horse, the Three Graces. Each work is begun and completed on a waning moon. His work is held in the collections of Will Smith and Delta Airlines.
David Yarrow, maradona (1986) · One work on view
David Yarrow was twenty years old, working for The London Times, when Argentina defeated West Germany 3–2 at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. In the moment after the trophy presentation, as 5,000 Argentinian fans flooded the field, Maradona, carried on the shoulders of celebrating supporters, looked directly into Yarrow's lens. The resulting photograph is the third best-selling sports image of all time.
Yarrow later pursued a career in banking before selling his hedge fund in 2014 to return to photography full-time. He is now among the world's best-selling fine art photographers, with work regularly offered through Sotheby's and major international auction houses. His Sporting Icons series includes landmark portraits of Erling Haaland and John McEnroe. The Maradona photograph, on view at Carousel Fine Art during the 2026 World Cup, is where it all began.
Max Steven grossman, Soccer WC 26 · One work on view
Grossman studied engineering before earning a Master of Arts in Photography from NYU and the International Center of Photography. His Bookscapes series — composite photographs of bookshelves organized by subject — has been collected across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Soccer WC 26 was created specifically for the 2026 World Cup.
At 48 by 100 inches, the work presents a wall of bookshelves whose spines, examined closely, resolve into the names of the sport's defining figures — Messi, Pelé, Maradona, Ronaldo, Mbappé, Eusébio, Beckham, Neymar, Kane, Henry, Platini. A library organized by greatness. The Diasec process — face-mounted to acrylic, backed with aluminum — gives the work a depth and surface intensity impossible in standard printing.
Chance cooper, Lotta Life Left · One work on view
Cooper is a self-taught painter whose practice centers on what he calls crowd theory, the idea that collective human experience, the energy of people gathered in shared emotion, is one of the most compelling and underserved subjects in contemporary painting. His crowd-scape works have been exhibited at Art Basel, the Santa Monica Water Garden public art program, and by Carousel Fine Art in Miami.
Lotta Life Left (2025) captures the communal energy of the World Cup crowd in bold, pop-art-influenced acrylic. In the context of this exhibition, Cooper's work provides the emotional completion that Torres, Yarrow, and Grossman require. Where Torres mythologizes the athlete, Yarrow documents the historic moment, and Grossman catalogs the legends, Cooper gives us the crowd, the human ocean that the game both creates and requires.
