Female image 1975

This monochromatic drawing of a female image was made by Hryhorii Havrylenko. It's all about the hatching here. Can you imagine him, with the pen in his hand, slowly, painstakingly building up the image with these lines? There’s a sense of care and attention in the making; each line is deliberate, building tone. It's almost like a kind of meditation, you know? Looking at the way he defines the shadows, and the set of her eyes, I get a sense of the artist and sitter being in a silent dialogue. It’s a reminder that artists are always looking, learning from each other, and responding to what came before. It's a conversation across time and space, full of possibilities.