Exlibris of U.Stepanov 1979

Oleksandr Aksinin made this Exlibris of U. Stepanov in 1979, and I’m guessing it’s an etching or an engraving, given the obsessive detail. Just look at that texture! It’s all built with these tiny, deliberate marks. Notice how the shading isn’t just about light and dark, but about the density and direction of those lines. Each little hatch mark feels like a decision, a tiny performance. I keep coming back to the plume of plant shoots, how they burst out of that vessel, contained yet overflowing. It’s almost like a controlled explosion of organic forms, juxtaposed against this crazy geometric framework. It reminds me a bit of Piranesi, but with a surreal twist. The way Aksinin merges the meticulous and the chaotic…it’s like he’s showing us how even the wildest ideas can be contained within a system, a structure. Sort of like art, you know?