Untitled 2022

Alevtyna Kakhidze made this drawing, with what looks like ink and colored pencil, showing three figures and a list of fears. The line is nervous, vulnerable – a kind of open, immediate mark-making which embraces the kind of ambiguity and uncertainty that can often lead to multiple interpretations. I think of the artist making the drawing, in a place maybe not so different from where you are now, but the news is bad, the mood is dark. What can an artist do but draw? Here, it’s like the figures are in conversation with one another across time, sharing ideas about what it means to feel fear, but also about the possibility of hope and resistance. Kakhidze has made something deeply personal, deeply felt, and deeply human. That’s what paintings can do – give a sense of something shared.