Man and Woman #2 1947

Leonard Nelson made this intriguing woodcut print, Man and Woman #2, sometime in the middle of last century. I can't help but imagine Nelson, back in ‘47, carefully carving into that block of wood, wrestling with the image, letting it emerge bit by bit. Look at the way the figures are constructed from sharp angles and dense patterns, almost like a puzzle coming together. There’s a real tension between the black and white, pushing and pulling our eyes across the surface. It reminds me of some of those early expressionist prints, but with a folk art twist. I wonder if Nelson was thinking about relationships, maybe the push and pull, the dance of connection. It makes you wonder what stories are hidden in those lines, doesn’t it? How artists, through all kinds of gestures, leave traces of themselves for us to find.