Valentina 2014

Gazmend Freitag’s painting, Valentina, is an oil on canvas where soft blues and greens blend like a dreamy memory of a summer’s day at the beach. I can imagine Freitag layering the paint, the brushstrokes building up the form of the figure and the waves, a bit like constructing a sandcastle, one careful scoop at a time. I feel like I’m standing right there with the artist, watching Valentina as the waves wash around her feet. The way Freitag captures the light on the water reminds me of impressionist painters like Monet, but there’s something more personal and intimate here. You get a sense of the artist’s own experience of the scene. The shadow at Valentina’s feet is so dark and mysterious; it's like a surreal punctuation mark in an otherwise familiar scene. Ultimately, making a painting is like having a conversation with all the painters that came before you, riffing on themes of light, form, and emotion. Each brushstroke is a response to something that’s been done before, a continuation of a dialogue that stretches back centuries.