Winter at the Dubovac Castle 2018

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this painting, Winter at the Dubovac Castle, in ink on paper. Look at the boldness and speed of those black marks that conjure up the bare branches of winter trees against the sky. I can almost feel him making it, the brush dancing across the page, deciding which shapes to make solid and which to leave as ghostly outlines. See how the negative space of the paper is just as important as the inked areas? I wonder if Krupa was thinking of Chinese landscape painting, where the unpainted parts of the silk or paper are like clouds or mist. That stark contrast—it's like a metaphor for winter itself, the way it simplifies the world down to its bones. It reminds me of other artists, too, like Franz Kline, who used black and white to create these powerful, abstract statements. Painting is always in conversation with itself, isn't it? Each artwork responding to something that came before, and hinting at something yet to come.