Susanna 1974

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this drawing of Susanna with what looks like graphite on paper, but when? I can imagine Havrylenko gently coaxing this image into being. A faint graphite portrait emerges with careful, tentative lines. The sitter rests her head in her hand, gazing softly forward. The image is almost ephemeral – a ghost of a person. The drawing is incomplete, unresolved. I wonder, was this a study for a larger piece, or a work in its own right? Maybe he wanted to capture the fragile nature of human presence. I know that feeling, when a line feels right, but you don't want to mess with it, so you leave it alone. It reminds me of those unfinished portraits by artists like Lucian Freud, where the process of searching becomes the subject. Havrylenko’s drawing invites us into that same space of inquiry, where seeing and becoming intertwine. We see Susanna but we are also party to the process that made her.