With the palm and the fingers of the hand: Below turbines (Korana river) 2007

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this painting, With the palm and the fingers of the hand: Below turbines (Korana river), with confident strokes of black on a white ground. I can imagine him really going for it, letting the ink flow and pool, trusting his hand to lead the way. There’s something so direct about black and white, it strips away the fuss and gets right to the bones of seeing. The title suggests we are beneath turbines near a river. I wonder if Krupa was thinking about the energy and movement of water when he made this. You know, how water can carve through rock over time, or rush through a narrow space with incredible force. I see that tension in the contrast of thick, dark strokes, against the stark white paper. There is a nod here to the Japanese masters of calligraphy and the Abstract Expressionists, all those artists who understood that painting is, above all, a conversation, an exchange across time. Each artist picks up the thread and weaves it into something new, something that speaks to their own experience of the world.