Angel of the Annunciation 1984

Maria Bozoky made this watercolor ‘Angel of the Annunciation’ without specifying a date; it's a revelation in pinks and blues, punctuated by decisive strokes of dark ink, it has a kind of raw immediacy. The thin washes of watercolor create these luminous, translucent layers, but then you've got the ink lines on top that are almost violently scratched across the surface. Look at the way the face is built up with these hesitant lines, a bit like Giacometti, or maybe a Cy Twombly scrawl, and then it is offset by a soft, almost romantic pink that gives the piece a delicate ethereal beauty. The contrast between the ephemeral lightness and those very present, dark ink strokes really animates the piece. The push and pull between the intuitive and the chaotic makes Bozoky's angel so compelling.