Two women 1962

Hryhorii Havrylenko painted "Two Women" with watercolor on paper and, honestly, I find the process here totally transparent. There's something tender about how the artist renders the figures. The way the colours bleed and blend suggests a process of intuition and discovery; the artist is feeling their way through the composition. Take for instance, how the red of the figures is set against the blue and green of the landscape, creating this dreamy contrast. The colours feel both melancholic and hopeful, like a memory fading at the edges. There is an area of raw canvas left white, forming the contours of the faces, which is really bold, and also feels very humble. I am reminded of the paintings of Milton Avery, also a master of reductive forms and evocative colour. Like Avery’s, Havrylenko’s painting embraces ambiguity. It’s not about perfect representation but about capturing something essential and human.