Two Abstract Compositions 1970

Hryhorii Havrylenko made these two abstract compositions using pen and ink, and look like he was working out some ideas. There’s something so intimate about drawings. You can feel the artist thinking through their hand, mark by mark. I’m thinking about Hryhorii, who spent time in labor camps for Ukranian nationalists, perhaps this drawing was made in a time when he was reflecting on freedom and confinement. These drawings give the sense of a gridded structure with subtle inflections, like quiet containers of thought. I see these sets of marks, the cross-hatching and the lines following the same diagonal, as a conversation. One that Havrylenko began, and now, years later, we can join in. It reminds me of the back-and-forth that all artists participate in, across time and space. These drawings invite us to see the world in new ways.