The boats at the Kupa river 1993

Alfred Freddy Krupa made "The boats at the Kupa river" with ink on paper. The monochromatic approach reminds me that limitations can be freeing. Sometimes, when you only have one color, you really start to see all the possibilities within it. The textures in this piece are subtle but effective. Notice how Krupa varies the pressure of the ink to suggest depth and volume. The marks around the boats are loose, gestural, almost like the landscape is breathing. Look at the lower left of the composition, see how the lines describing the bank almost dissolve into the page, creating this fantastic sense of light and atmosphere? It makes me think of Cy Twombly's scribbled, almost childlike marks, but with a grounded, observational quality. With art, it’s never about perfection, but about finding that sweet spot of ambiguity where the work really starts to sing.