The Plain 1961

Jack Zajac made this print, "The Plain", by layering dark and light marks on a plate, then pressing it onto paper. I wonder what it was like for Zajac to make this? The process of making a print is so different from a painting. It’s more technical. It requires this strange kind of back-and-forth, between surface and image, between what you imagine and what ends up on the paper. There is a figure with arms outstretched. It appears to be falling and I have a sense of dark matter swirling around them. It reminds me a little of Goya's darker prints, those stark, unsettling visions. Artists have always been looking at each other's work, picking up ideas, throwing them back out changed. We're all in this ongoing conversation. Ultimately, there's no one right way to see this. It's a space for your own imagination to wander.