Girl and Goat 1984

Rudolf Láng made this pastel drawing, ‘Girl and Goat’, most likely on paper and without a date. The way the colours seem to hover and rub against each other, it’s like Láng is almost feeling the image into being. You can see that artmaking is a kind of process, like sifting through the world for something. The dark background really pushes the lighter yellows and browns forward, like they’re glowing. The girl herself is just a few strokes, kind of disappearing into the woods, while the goat is like a little spark of light. Look at the way Láng uses these marks to create texture and depth, the colours smear and blend, it’s all so physical. There's a real dialogue happening here between the figurative and the abstract, between something being there and disappearing into the ether. It reminds me a bit of Redon, that sense of dreamy symbolism, of figures emerging from a haze of colour. Art is like this ongoing conversation, ideas flowing back and forth across time. Láng is less concerned with certainty and more interested in the mystery of what he depicts.