While Fixing Hair 2015

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this ink drawing titled 'While Fixing Hair' using brushes and ink. The image is so immediate and confident; just a few strokes and you know exactly what you are seeing. The thing with ink is that it flows. It has a mind of its own, and Krupa really lets it do its thing here. Like that big stroke that defines the figure's left side – it’s dark and concentrated at the top, then thins out and drips, and fades away. This feels spontaneous, like the ink is guiding the artist as much as the artist is guiding the ink. I am reminded of Franz Kline. Both artists share a love of gestural abstraction, finding ways to suggest forms and figures without needing to represent things literally. But where Kline's works can feel monumental and epic, Krupa's drawing is intimate, as if glimpsed in a mirror. There’s a real tension between control and chance. I like that.