Portrait of Hollós Ilona 1930

This is Kmetty János’s Portrait of Hollós Ilona, a watercolor wash that feels both immediate and strangely distant. I mean, look at how the pigments pool and feather, creating these ghostly, translucent layers. It's like the artist was coaxing the image out of the paper itself. The brushstrokes are so loose, almost hesitant, yet they define the form with uncanny precision. Notice especially the cheek, where the pink bleeds just so. There’s a real push and pull between control and accident, which gets at the heart of artmaking as a process of discovery. It reminds me a little of Alex Katz, actually, but with a touch of something more haunted and fragile. Ultimately, it's this embrace of ambiguity that makes it so compelling, inviting us to bring our own interpretations.