Untitled 2017

This untitled work by Alevtyna Kakhidze looks like it was made in a sketchbook with ink or marker. It’s got these two little angel figures, then a box with more figures around it. It makes me think about what Kakhidze was feeling or thinking at the time she was making the work. I can imagine her rapidly filling the page, almost like automatic writing, letting the images flow from her mind onto the paper. The little figures are so direct and naive, it’s like seeing straight into her thoughts, or like a message in a bottle. There’s a real rawness to the marks, they aren’t labored over, they just exist, capturing a moment. It reminds me of other artists who work in sketchbooks like Cy Twombly, always drawing, always thinking with the pen. I wonder what she'd think of me thinking of her this way. Ultimately, artmaking is a continuous exchange, and each artist is connected, responding to one another across time and space.