Stonbridge in Prizren 2 2010

Gazmend Freitag made this drawing of Stonbridge in Prizren with pen on paper. I can almost see the artist, Freitag, sitting on the riverbank, squinting slightly in the Balkan sun, quickly sketching with confident, brisk lines. You get the feeling he's got maybe an hour, tops, before the light changes. The bridge looms up in front of us, monumental yet intimate, solid and at the same time, trembling with the feeling of the place. I love how he uses hatching to create a sense of depth and texture. The marks evoke a feeling of movement – the water flowing under the bridge, the wind whistling through the mountains beyond. It reminds me of the drawings of Egon Schiele, or even some of Hockney's pen and ink drawings from the '60s. There's a real conversation happening here, across time, between artists using simple means to capture something profound.