Exlibris of K.Sotnyck 1979

This etching, Exlibris of K.Sotnyck, was made by Oleksandr Aksinin in 1979. Aksinin had this incredible way of making the strangest things feel so familiar, don’t you think? I mean, look at this character—or maybe it's a stack of characters? Each one seems to be propping up the other, bound in some way by the black and white bars. It’s playful but unsettling. I imagine Aksinin hunched over the plate, scratching away with his tools, carefully building up this little universe, lost in the process. I love the way he uses such a limited palette to create so much depth and texture. The way he balances the figure with the abstract pattern in the background, it’s almost like two separate worlds colliding. You can see echoes of artists like Klee and even Goya in his work, this real push and pull between fantasy and reality. I think it’s a conversation that all artists are having, in their own way.