Donau Linz 2021

Gazmend Freitag painted Donau Linz in 2021, a square canvas of greens and blues. I can imagine Freitag standing there, looking at this scene. It’s really about color, and that cool feeling you get near water. The artist is really thinking about how to make the color shift with each brushstroke, right? The greens are like quick flicks of the wrist, and the blues are washed in like he’s trying to catch the light on the water. The reflections of those buildings are so subtle they’re almost not there, which makes you think about how memory works. It's a kind of impression, of a place, but it also feels like a feeling. It reminds me of other landscape painters like, say, Peter Doig, where the place is also a state of mind. And what’s cool is that Freitag’s not trying to trick you with realism; he's letting the paint do its thing, and in doing so, he’s showing you how he sees. And maybe how we can see too.