Female image 1975

This piece is a line drawing by Hryhorii Havrylenko. I am really moved by the confidence and precision of line. Havrylenko’s portrait has a sensitive economy to it. It is immediately arresting, and yet its power resides in its seeming simplicity. I wonder if it's ink on paper? You see that he has captured the profile of a woman's face, and then he's gone to work on the shaded parts of the face. I think about the artist and I wonder about the mood he was in when he made it. Was he drawing someone close to him? Was it an experiment to see how much feeling can be created with so few marks? It is about negative space as much as it is about line. It’s the kind of drawing that makes you want to pick up a pencil and try to capture the essence of someone you see. The relationship between artists and their subjects, as well as the relationship between artists and their materials, is part of the creative conversation and exchange of ideas across time.