Caricature of the radio manager Branko Obradović-Kina 1994

Here, Alfred Freddy Krupa drew a caricature of radio manager Branko Obradović-Kina with ink on paper, and it’s a fascinating process of reduction, of boiling down the essence of a person into a few lines. Look at the concentrated squiggles that define the hair, the confident strokes outlining the face. It's raw, immediate, as if Krupa captured a fleeting moment. The hand holding the microphone is particularly interesting. It’s not about perfect anatomical accuracy, it's about the gesture, the energy of the guy at work. I'm reminded a bit of Philip Guston, how he also used simple lines to convey complicated emotions and to tell stories. It’s about finding the right vocabulary, the right marks, to create a kind of shorthand for the human experience. The beauty of a piece like this is in its openness, its willingness to embrace the messy, imperfect reality of being alive.