Franz Dobusch 2016

Gazmend Freitag made this drawing of Franz Dobusch in 2016. It's mostly a reddish brown hue, scribbled with colored pencil, the kind you might have used in art class when you were a kid. I’m always wondering, what's it like to make a portrait? To sit with someone and really look at them. The artist is seeing Dobusch, but Dobusch is also seeing the artist back—kind of an awkward but intense exchange of gazes. I’m curious about the build-up of lines, how Freitag uses the pencil to give shape to his face, one stroke at a time, figuring out the placement of the glasses, the way the light hits his forehead. It’s like a conversation between the artist and the sitter, a dance of marks trying to capture something essential about a person, but never quite pinning it down. It makes me think about artists like Alice Neel, who also got at something about the vulnerability of people. This drawing feels like a part of that bigger conversation, where artists keep trying to see and understand each other through the act of making.