Barbara Heim 2015

Gazmend Freitag made this pencil drawing, Barbara Heim, on paper, sometime around 2015. You can see the artist feeling his way into the subject, adjusting the marks as he goes. There's a real sense of give and take, of process. Look at the way the pencil lines build up to create form and shadow. The texture of the paper remains visible throughout, which adds to the immediacy of the work. The hair, in particular, is rendered with these radiating, almost electric lines, giving the portrait a sense of energy and movement. There's a kind of graphic quality to the work as a whole, almost like an illustration. It reminds me a little of Alex Katz's drawings, in the way that it captures a likeness with such economy and directness. Art is always in conversation, artists looking and learning from each other across generations. There’s no right or wrong way to interpret a work like this, it’s all about opening up possibilities.