Bachelorette with knee sail 1972

Christian Attersee made this drawing, Bachelorette with knee sail, with a kind of loose, flowing line that feels both controlled and totally wild. I love how the body almost melts into the landscape, like the figure is becoming one with the water and the wooden dock. The textures are amazing: the soft fuzz of the body hair, the smooth curves of the knee sail, and the watery patterns of the landscape. It's like Attersee is exploring different ways of being, blurring the boundaries between human and nature, hard and soft. Look at the way the hair flows into the water like a dark stain. It reminds me a bit of some of Francis Picabia's later, more figurative work, where bodies become landscapes and identities dissolve. Attersee's work, like Picabia’s, celebrates the messiness and ambiguity of life, inviting us to embrace the unexpected.