Female image 1964

This drawing of a female image was created by Hryhorii Havrylenko, though we don't know exactly when. Look at the stark, linear quality of the marks, as the pen digs into the paper. I get the sense that the artist was feeling their way into this figure, building it up through layer upon layer of hatching and cross-hatching. It reminds me of the way Giacometti would rework a painting over and over, trying to capture the essence of a person. I can imagine Havrylenko trying to get the angles and planes of the face just right. It's almost cubist, the way the features are broken down into geometric shapes, but there's also something very human and vulnerable about it. The way the lines are so raw and exposed – it's like the artist is letting us see their struggle to capture something real. Artists are always having a conversation with each other, across time, inspiring each other. We build on what came before us.