Euromaidan 2014

Alevtyna Kakhidze made this drawing, Euromaidan, in 2014, using what looks like just a regular pen on paper. I can only imagine her there, pen in hand, a black line weaving a path across the white ground. It’s so immediate, right? You can almost feel the artist’s breath and see her in the moment, with her quick, responsive marks. The linear structures look like a cross between a construction site and a landscape. Was she trying to capture a fleeting feeling? It’s like she's untangling her thoughts as she draws, like she is literally thinking through the ink. You can see a landscape emerging and her notes on the side. There's a lot of tension in those lines, a mix of fragility and resolve. It reminds me of other artists who use drawing as a way to map personal or political territory, like Nancy Spero or someone like William Kentridge. Artists are constantly speaking to each other, and Kakhidze taps into that shared language, adding her own inflection. And that’s the thing about art, it's always alive and open to new interpretations.