Grated ink: the ghost above the city 2015

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this grating of ink, maybe without a date, and look at the way he's just gone at it! It’s like he’s trying to dig down to something, isn’t it? The dark ink is scraped back, revealing the white of the paper. The surface isn’t smooth and blended, no, instead you get these jabs and scratches. See how that technique makes the face emerge like something glimpsed in a nightmare. I keep thinking of Giacometti. He was always searching, too, working the surface, never quite satisfied, and maybe Krupa feels the same. There is an energy, an urgency to this piece. It captures a fleeting moment, a half-formed thought, a question mark hanging in the air. A ghost above the city, perhaps? It could be anything. And that’s the beauty of it.