Flogerta Driza 2021

Gazmend Freitag made this portrait, "Flogerta Driza," in 2021 with what looks like watercolour and pencil, a dreamy mix of looseness and control. The way the soft washes of colour bleed into the paper feels so immediate, like he’s trying to catch a fleeting moment. Look at how the colour creates this luminous skin, and the pencil gives it structure, like a skeleton. I'm drawn to the white patches on her face; they don't quite read as highlights, but as absences, maybe. The red of her lips is such a small detail, yet it grounds the image, giving it a touch of reality amidst all the ethereal washes. This reminds me of work by Marlene Dumas, how she uses watercolour to capture fleeting emotions and psychological states. Freitag invites us into a world where ambiguity reigns, where the process is as important as the final image.