Barbara 2015

Gazmend Freitag painted this artwork called ‘Barbara’ in 2015. There’s something so human about it, the way the brushstrokes blend and blur, like a memory taking shape on the canvas. I can just imagine Freitag standing before the canvas, his mind full of the subject. Did he know Barbara? And what he might have been thinking about her while making it? Look at the surface, you can see the thickness of the paint, how it’s built up in layers. I love the way he captured the body—the fleshiness, the texture—it reminds me of the old masters, like Rubens or Titian, but with a contemporary twist. It’s a gesture of seeing and painting, a way of understanding the world through the body. The green and the brown seem very considered, yet loose and ambiguous. It’s like Freitag is inviting us to join him in this act of seeing, encouraging us to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the work. And really, that’s what painting is all about – a conversation across time, where artists inspire each other to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.