The Strike 1955

Robert Ernst Marx made this print, called The Strike, sometime after 1925, using colour woodcut on paper. Look at the slashes of black, red and grey and the way they collide. You get the sense that it came into being through intuition and maybe a little bit of trial and error. I can imagine Marx in his studio, wrestling with the wood, carving out shapes, and thinking hard about each colour. There’s a tension in this print, a kind of drama played out through the contrast of light and dark, and the angular shapes which almost seem to be exploding. The black wings and bodies are really bold. It reminds me of Franz Marc's animal paintings, all sharp angles and raw energy. Making art is like having a conversation with all the artists who came before you. You grab a little something from each of them, and then you add your own twist. You try to make something new. Painting is like embodied expression; it's about ambiguity and uncertainty. It's about embracing the unknown.