Anita Likmeta 2017

Curator: Here we have Gazmend Freitag’s 2017 pencil drawing, titled “Anita Likmeta”. It’s currently held in a private collection. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: It's compelling; there's an immediacy in the linework. The artist captures the subject's direct gaze. The shadow behind her head reminds me of a halo of darkness, which gives an impression of melancholy. Curator: It’s interesting that you noticed the halo effect; shadows are rarely coincidental. Freitag’s choice to obscure the top corner begs the question, who is Anita Likmeta, and why portray her in this way? Are we looking at a commentary on the representation of women? Editor: The symmetry of her face, the softness of her lips. It makes me think of classical archetypes, the persistent image of female beauty across time. But then the rough, almost aggressive strokes framing her head shatter that serenity, hinting at a more complicated inner life. It feels almost like the Madonna image, disrupted. Curator: Precisely! Her expression, although serene on the surface, seems laden with societal expectations, mirroring broader dialogues around gender, power, and visibility. Her somewhat vulnerable pose, set against the darkness surrounding her head could refer to something deeper. Do you notice the dark tones used around the upper-left of the portrait, and then how the work's lower portion, in contrast, contains lighter, upward-moving strokes? Editor: Yes, that could reference her future possibilities or freedom from what weighs above. She looks to be in her late 20s perhaps. I wonder about the significance of the pencil as the medium – it allows for quickness, for mistakes, it has a sense of reality in it. Does it reflect the pressures of immediate, tangible realities for women of her generation, navigating both personal ambition and structural obstacles? Curator: The unfinished quality indeed highlights the transient, mutable nature of identity, especially female identity in a contemporary context. Likmeta embodies a figure trapped between aspiration and constraint. I see Freitag positioning her not just as an individual, but as representative of women dealing with many levels of conflict. Editor: It's this intersection of vulnerability and power that I find so captivating. The artist's choice of pencil lends it an honesty that perhaps a more refined medium couldn't achieve. Curator: It provides us with a vital piece for examining representations of femininity. Editor: Absolutely, and highlights the ever-evolving nature of inherited symbolic meanings.