Female image 1975

This black ink drawing of a woman comes to us from the hand of Hryhorii Havrylenko. Look closely, you can see the hatching, those parallel lines that build up the image, giving her form and volume. I wonder what he was thinking as he worked. Maybe he paused, considering each line, each stroke, as he built up her face, her garment, and the background beyond? The simple lines have a directness and intensity, but, for me, there's something unsettling about that background. The blankness of the white space is interrupted by those horizontal lines, the marks are hovering, or vibrating... Think about how he might have felt, the pen in his hand, the ink flowing onto the paper, building an image out of simple strokes. It's a way of seeing and thinking, where the mind, the eye, and the hand come together in a kind of dance. Artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other's ideas across time, inspiring one another.