Untitled (Phallus Girl) 1964

Hans Bellmer made this pencil drawing, Untitled (Phallus Girl), with so much cross-hatching that it's like a storm of marks, blurring the boundaries between bodies and objects. I can feel Bellmer’s hand moving rapidly across the paper, as though the image is trying to escape. I imagine Bellmer hunched over his drawing board, obsessively layering lines, trying to capture something elusive and unsettling. There’s a sense of anxiety here, an almost desperate need to materialize an idea. The graphite feels raw, like a neurological diagram. It’s a very personal drawing, exploring themes of sexuality, identity, and the body. I wonder if Bellmer was thinking about the Surrealists and their exploration of the unconscious, or maybe even the old masters and their anatomical studies. Artists are always in conversation with each other, consciously or unconsciously, adding their own twist to the ongoing dialogue.