Kyiv in winter (triptych, central part: "On a sled") 1986

Yuriy Khymych made this central part of "Kyiv in Winter (triptych)" as a watercolor, and you can just feel that winter light through the way he layers the colors. The strokes are really direct and confident, and the way he’s used the white of the paper creates this sense of light reflecting off the snow. Look at the buildings – how he builds them up with washes of brown and gray, but leaves the edges soft and undefined. It's like he’s more interested in the feeling of the place than in getting every detail exactly right. The paint’s so thin in places you can see the paper underneath, and in others, like on the roofs, it’s built up a bit, giving it a sense of depth and texture. And see those two tiny figures pulling a sled? They're so small in the composition, but somehow they bring the whole scene to life. It’s like a memory, faded and dreamlike, but still so full of feeling. It reminds me a little bit of some of the early modernist cityscapes, like Lyonel Feininger, where the city becomes this abstracted, emotional space.