Untitled. Winter Album 2016

Kinder Album made this untitled watercolour in 2011, and I’m already shivering just looking at it! I can imagine them in their studio, or maybe even outside in the snow, quickly sketching the scene that’s unfolding. What I love about watercolours is their sheer immediacy. Each brushstroke seems to capture a fleeting moment, like the way the snow falls or smoke curls into the icy air. There’s something so vulnerable about the figure, almost nude in the snowy scene save for a purple knitted hat and boots. The snow falling around her seems to create a stark and isolating composition – and it makes me wonder about how the artist was feeling as they made it. Were they also feeling exposed, but at the same time, exhilarated by the challenge of depicting something so raw and personal? Album uses these watery colours and light touches to suggest a world that’s both beautiful and slightly surreal, capturing a feeling or an idea over something too realistic. And it’s in that in-between space that the magic happens, where the artist invites us to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the scene, maybe finding a bit of ourselves in the process.