Lovers c. 1914

Paul Gangolf made this woodcut, Lovers, at some point in the early 20th Century. It’s all about contrast, isn’t it? Black and white, light and shadow, and the way the artist has played with positive and negative space to build this intimate scene. It’s pretty raw, immediate. You get the sense Gangolf was really feeling his way through the process. The physicality of the medium is palpable. Those bold, graphic lines – you can almost feel the knife cutting into the wood. I’m drawn to the way the figures emerge from this flurry of marks; see how the contours of their bodies are suggested rather than defined, like they're dissolving into the ether? The white space flickers around the figures, and is so dense it almost feels like another presence in the picture, a kind of barrier or force. This reminds me a little of Munch, but with an earthier, less psychologically fraught sensibility. Like many woodcuts, the image embraces ambiguity. It’s about the push and pull of perception, the dance between what's there and what we project onto it.