Glasses 1985

Oleksandr Aksinin made this print, "Glasses," sometime before 1985, using what looks like pen and ink. I love the way Aksinin is working in a limited palette and repeating marks to create something magical. The texture is incredible, like the dark blue ground is alive with tiny dots, and the "glasses" themselves, or are they towers?, have this shimmery, almost vibrating quality. Look at how each little dot of ink has been carefully placed to build up the image, like a kind of pointillist vision of the world. It feels obsessive, but in the best way, like the artist is really seeing and feeling every little bit of what he's depicting. That repetition creates rhythm, but it also feels like a meditation, a way of slowing down and paying attention. Aksinin's work reminds me a bit of Paul Klee, in that way of finding big meaning in small marks, of building up a whole world from simple shapes. It's a good reminder that art isn't always about grand gestures, but about the power of process, too.