The portrait of Ben 1990

Alfred Freddy Krupa made this portrait of Ben, with graphite on paper. You can see the pencil strokes, the artist feels like they were figuring out Ben’s shape, the shadows on his face, and the glint in his eye. I can imagine the artist drawing and redrawing the lines, feeling their way through the form. How much do you think Krupa knows Ben? There are these other small dog figures in the background, like memories or maybe Ben’s dreams. One looks like it’s jumping over a hurdle, and another is like a phantom limb. There’s something so immediate and intimate about drawing. You see the artist’s hand, the pressure they put on the pencil, and how that translates into the weight and volume of the subject. Drawing is such an old, old medium, but artists keep returning to it, finding new things to say.