Plate II (Deska) 1962

Jirí Balcar made this print, “Plate II (Deska)” in 1962, and what strikes me is the quiet intimacy of the velvety blacks. I imagine Balcar working on the plate, inking it, wiping it back, adjusting, each stage a conversation. The two dark rectangles stacked one on top of the other are bisected by a horizon line. It's a landscape of the mind. You can see the subtle nuances, the textures, the slight imperfections, all telling a story of process. He’s probably thinking of Malevich or Rothko, while in dialogue with the graphic traditions of his Czech homeland. For me, the beauty here is in the tension between control and accident, where the artist's hand meets the unpredictable nature of the medium. Every mark feels like a thought, a feeling, made visible. The history of painting is a conversation between artists, each building on the work of those who came before, and Balcar is definitely part of that conversation.