Sanny 2021

Gazmend Freitag made this painting titled Sanny on a 120 x 120 cm canvas with, what looks like, oils. I’m really drawn to how the fleshy tones merge with the bedsheets, and how this creates a soft, dreamy sort of haze. I feel like the artist has carefully built up the paint in layers, blurring the edges of things, smudging contours. And I wonder about the physicality of it all… the way his hand moved to depict Sanny's hand touching herself! You can feel that Gazmend is thinking about the history of reclining nudes, and how he might bring something new to that well-worn theme. There is this intimate, interior feeling, where the woman seems to be the centre of the universe. You can almost see the artist there with her, feeling out the painting stroke by stroke. It's a dance between looking and feeling, being present in the act of creation, and building a pictorial space.