Abstract composition 1969

This abstract composition was made with ink on paper by Hryhorii Havrylenko. Look at this drawing—I can feel the artist's hand moving, trying out forms, searching for balance in a sea of white space. I wonder if Havrylenko felt a sense of freedom in abstraction, an escape from representation, or a distillation of it. He's in conversation with the Russian Constructivists—but what does it mean to revisit those radical ideas in another time, another place? Each of these floating lines and shapes carries weight; they create this visual rhythm. The grouping of parallel lines strikes me— simple but resonant, like a musical chord, or the bars of a cage. Artists, like Havrylenko, teach us to see the world in new ways, to find meaning in the most unexpected forms, embracing uncertainty, so we might construct our own interpretations.