Young Nadege 2012

Gazmend Freitag’s oil painting, “Young Nadege”, shimmers with delicate tonal variation, each brushstroke alive with the artist’s care. It’s easy to imagine Freitag in the studio, shifting back and forth, trying to capture the specific feeling of a face, building form through color. I wonder, did he know Nadege? Was she in the room with him? Maybe he was working from a photo? I love the fleshy pinks and reds of her face, shadowed by her thick dark hair. It reminds me of a Modigliani, or maybe a Manet. The necklace feels like it was added later, each pearl a careful dab of thick white paint. Her gaze suggests she is somewhere else, in her own world, despite being observed. Painters are always in conversation with other painters, even across long stretches of time, wrestling with the same problems of representation, presence, and feeling. Ultimately, painting is about that struggle, and about exchange, a dance with the past, a gesture towards the future.