Female image 1975

Editor: This is "Female Image," a drawing by Hryhorii Havrylenko from 1975. It’s currently in a private collection. The simple line drawing has a cool, almost detached feel. What do you make of it? Curator: Detached is a great word for it! It feels like a memory, seen through the gauze of time, doesn’t it? The almost ruthless simplicity – the lines are so spare, almost a child’s drawing – it hints at something profound. I imagine the artist quickly capturing an essence rather than painstakingly rendering detail. Like catching smoke in your hand, a whisper of a feeling. What does the image evoke for you? Editor: It makes me think of early figure drawing classes, when the goal was to capture the form with the fewest lines possible. Curator: Yes! And there’s something universal in that exercise, isn’t there? Trying to strip away the non-essentials, to find the underlying architecture of the figure. You can almost feel the artist searching for… what's the core feeling to reveal here. Editor: So it's not so much about *who* she is but more about an *idea* of a woman? Curator: Precisely! Think of it as less a portrait, more a fleeting glimpse. The woman is more the *feeling* of woman. The drawing doesn’t so much depict *her*, but what it *feels like* to look at her. Does that distinction make sense? Editor: Definitely! That's helped me to understand a new depth, it is really about an idea of a female, but then it is also just a sketch for an exercise, right? Curator: I love that paradox – both/and. This is just as compelling to be art as well. An exercise becomes something moving in this glimpse into a personal thought. Editor: Absolutely! It makes you consider every single line that much harder. Curator: Exactly! Now you're getting closer to seeing it with the Artist eyes...