Two Seated Figures and Fish c. 1960s

Louis Lozowick made this pen and ink drawing, Two Seated Figures and Fish, date unknown. The first thing that strikes me is the starkness, the economy of line. It’s like a stage set, these simple shapes thrown into relief. The figures, huddled together, almost pyramidal, remind me of hooded figures or maybe refugees. It's as if Lozowick is searching for the essence of form, stripping away anything unnecessary. I wonder what he was thinking, scribbling away in his studio, trying to capture something essential about human connection and our relationship to the natural world. I imagine him, hunched over the page, the scratching of the pen a kind of meditation. I feel a kinship with the guy. We are both trying to make sense of the world through lines and shapes. It makes me think about other artists who embraced simplicity—Agnes Martin, maybe. How the smallest gesture can carry so much weight. It’s all about reduction, finding the poetry in the barest of means.