Untitled 1990

This untitled drawing was made by Zdzislaw Beksinski in 1990. The artist uses line here in such a way, such freedom and darkness, that the figure emerges as something spectral, or perhaps the memory of something lost or never known. Look at how the ink is applied with such directness, as though the artist is searching for the figure within the act of making the marks itself. See that knot of lines that forms the figure's head and shoulders? I love how they coalesce from the frantic scribble into a solid mass, a dark halo or aura. And then how this gives way again to the thin, scratchy, almost tentative lines that form the legs. This reminds me of some of the work of Goya, particularly his etchings, in the way it finds beauty and power in the grotesque. It's as though Beksinski is saying that even in the darkest corners of our imagination, there is something to be discovered, something to be understood.