Kyiv Diary 2014

Vlada Ralko made this drawing called Kyiv Diary, probably in ink and watercolour. It looks like the kind of thing you make when you’re trying to figure something out through the sheer act of drawing. The skin tones are delicate, the feet have a strange buoyancy, but the mass of innards in the box, that feels weighty, it’s full of heavy lines and dark shadows. There is something claustrophobic about the box, and yet, it is also spilling out into the space. Take a look at the way the black ink bleeds into the paper around the edges. That feels really important. It's not a clean line, it’s a messy, uncontrolled border. It almost makes me think of Philip Guston, how he used those clunky cartoonish forms to deal with the weight of the world. Both artists seem to be searching for a way to express something that is hard to pin down.