The girl in the hat 1979

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this drawing, "The Girl in the Hat," with ink on paper, on March 5th, 1979. It's all about line, isn't it? The hatching, the way he builds up tone. I always find drawings like this so revealing of an artist’s process. Look at the way he renders the shadow on the right side of her face, the way the ink lines are layered like loose threads, pulled into place. They feel so free, but they construct this really solid, almost classical form. It’s all about how mark-making can create volume. I see a little bit of Picasso in this work – the way the image feels fragmented and whole at the same time. It’s like a conversation across time. Art is always talking to art, a constant exchange of ideas. It's amazing how something as simple as a line can be so full of ambiguity, so open to interpretation.