Self-portrait 1957

Kateryna Bilokur made this self-portrait in pencil, and what grabs me is the way she’s captured her own gaze. It’s direct, unflinching, like she’s really trying to see herself as she is. The texture here is amazing. Look at the shawl wrapped around her head, the way she’s rendered every fold and shadow. And then there’s the background, this almost abstract field of strokes that could be trees or just a flurry of energy. You can almost feel the pressure of the pencil on the paper, the way she built up the tones layer by layer. It’s not about perfection, it’s about the process of looking, of feeling. The marks around her eye, a delicate web of lines, speak volumes. There's something about this that reminds me of Paula Modersohn-Becker, that same raw honesty and commitment to portraying the self without any romantic fluff. It’s like a conversation across time, a reminder that art is about seeing and being seen, in all our messy, imperfect glory.