Nocturne IV 1982

Evan Summer made this intaglio, Nocturne IV, and straight away I’m seeing a process. Look how the geometry of forms creates a tension between chaos and order, like a cityscape in the process of being built or dismantled. The real beauty for me is in the surface. It’s all about the cross-hatching, the layering of lines that build up the tones. These lines, they're not just describing form, they're creating texture, a tactile sense of depth. See how the light catches the edges of those forms. It’s almost sculptural, like a low relief carving. I keep wondering what tools were used, how was the copper plate worked? Was it with a burin, or acid? You can get lost in the details here, each mark telling a story of its making. There’s an echo of Piranesi in the scale and drama of this print, but also something very contemporary in its abstraction. Is it a building? A ruin? Or just an exploration of form and light? Maybe it’s all of those things at once.