Tree with Red Crutch 1998

Louise Bourgeois made this print, 'Tree with Red Crutch', without a date, using etching and aquatint, which is a real dance between control and letting go. The marks in the tree are delicate, looping lines, like a conversation you can only half hear. And then, bam! That red crutch hits you. It's so flat and bold, it pops right out of the picture plane. It makes you wonder, what's broken? Is it the tree, or is it us? There's something so vulnerable about the tree itself, it's all exposed and spindly, with these weird fruits that look more like scabs. Bourgeois isn't hiding anything here, she's putting it all out there, the messy, painful stuff. You can see how the tree is trying to hold itself together, like in her sculptures, which deal with similar ideas of the body, fragility, and resilience. It reminds me a bit of Philip Guston's later work, that raw, emotional honesty. But hey, that's just one way to see it. What do you think?