Gabriele on the bamboo bed 3 2007

Gazmend Freitag made this painting of ‘Gabriele on the bamboo bed 3’ with visible loose hatching that lets the ground peek through, like a half-erased memory. There’s something refreshingly un-precious about the application of the colour here: it’s thin, scrubby, more suggestive than descriptive. I love the way the raw canvas asserts itself as an equal partner in the process. Look at how the artist has built up the shadows under her arm, and around the bed using thin, washy paint, it reminds me of a Cy Twombly in its sense of gesture. The bed itself seems to dissolve, as if time is slipping away, or perhaps we’re dreaming. This is painting as a dialogue, not a monologue. It’s a conversation between intention and accident, control and surrender. And ultimately, it’s an invitation for us to join in, to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the table.