Untitled 2022

Here we have an urgent image drawn by Alevtyna Kakhidze and it feels like it was made with whatever materials were on hand. It's so raw and direct. I imagine Alevtyna, the artist, in the thick of it all, trying to make sense of what’s happening in the Russia-Ukraine war. She's got these figures and words all jumbled together. They remind me of Philip Guston's late work, that grappling with the world in all its messy, uncomfortable reality. The lines are so immediate, like she's thinking right onto the paper. And the way she layers text and image – it's like she's trying to capture the simultaneity of information overload, the way news and opinions crash into each other. It's not just about showing the war, but also about questioning it. You can almost feel her mind working through the complexities, asking, "What is the difference between the Russian and US militarism, or any other?" Artists are always pushing us to see things from new angles, aren't they?