Agathe 1947

Valentine Hugo's drawing 'Agathe' is wrought with hands—some tender, others monstrous—all reaching, grasping, or hovering. Hugo, who ran with the Surrealists, was deeply invested in the phantasmic potential of the psyche. I can imagine her in the studio, wrestling with these dreamlike images. Maybe the hands represent a sense of entrapment, those of a patriarchal society perhaps? Or the way that trauma reaches out to grab you? The eyes staring out above the duvet are just so full of fear. And the doll-like figure is pretty creepy too. The pencil hatching creates a soft, hazy texture, like a half-remembered nightmare. But then those dark black lines of the coil are so graphic. Maybe Hugo was thinking of other artists who played with the subconscious like Leonora Carrington. The coil looks a little like one of Louise Bourgeois’s spirals. Ultimately, Agathe is an invitation into a world of symbolism, reminding us of the power of art to confront uncomfortable truths.