Seated Woman (verso) 1966

Jacob Kainen made this drawing of a seated woman, with graphite on paper, and it’s all about the energy of the line. The lines are tentative, searching, and that's the beauty of it, right? It's like you're watching the artist think. It's not overworked. You can really feel the hand and the eye working together. I love how the weight of the line varies, thick in some places, almost disappearing in others. Look at the looping marks around her bent leg; the way they almost don't resolve into a solid form, but they do, just enough. It reminds me a bit of Matisse’s line drawings – that same sense of capturing the essence of a form with as few strokes as possible. Art is never about perfection, it's more interesting when it embraces the rough edges.