Portrait of I. Korovets 1931

Oleksa Novakivskyi captured I. Korovets with oils, layering browns, greens, and creams into a blurry scene. I can almost feel Novakivskyi’s concentration as he built up the portrait, stroke by stroke, trying to fix his likeness to the canvas. I wonder what was going through his mind as he painted, the dialogue between artist and sitter. It’s such a human impulse, isn't it, to want to remember a face, to keep it close? The background almost dissolves into abstraction, a storm of brushstrokes, while the figure emerges with quiet intensity. It reminds me a bit of early Picasso, or maybe some of those slightly melancholic portraits by Paula Modersohn-Becker. Painters, we're all just talking to each other across time, picking up on each other's vibes, recycling ideas. And that’s the beauty of painting, isn't it? It’s never really finished. There’s always room for another conversation, another interpretation.