Woods 1973

Maki Haku made 'Woods' using a printmaking technique, woodblock I think, judging by the grain of the paper. The solid black form sits there, bold and stark. It could be a tree, or a branch—or maybe it's the idea of the woods, distilled and made solid. I can imagine Haku, carving away at the block, each cut a decision, a paring down to the essential. It's a dance of positive and negative space, a conversation between what's there and what's not. It's giving me Franz Kline, you know? That same love of powerful, simple, immediate gestures. This feels like a sister or a cousin to his work. Artists are always talking to each other, even across time and place. It's all one big conversation, one continuous game of telephone. And in that spirit, this piece leaves a space for imagination, like a Zen koan asking "what *are* the woods?".