Men and Beasts II 1965

Rudy Pozzatti made this print, Men and Beasts II, in 1965. Just imagine the inky workshop, the smell of solvents, and the sheer physical graft of pressing images from a plate. There are two blocks, each with four faces or masks, and you can see how Pozzatti used black ink to create a world of contrasts. It’s all about the push and pull between light and dark, isn't it? I wonder what he was thinking about when he made this? About the ways that humans and animals are similar and different? Maybe the process felt like an excavation for him, digging into the surface to reveal these half-formed figures? The textured border on each block is where the two states of being start to blur into one another: men become beasts and beasts become men. This feels so important to me as I make my own work: the recognition that painting is not just about the image, it’s about the whole messy process of getting there. We are all beasts trying to become men, or vice versa.