Night Voyage 1956

Ynez Johnston made this print, "Night Voyage," with who knows what kind of inky stuff, but it's all about process, right? Like a conversation between the artist and the plate. Look at the dark, inky blacks, those are the voids from which all these playful architectural forms emerge. It's not about a perfect picture; it's like she's digging into the surface. There is a scratched, almost distressed quality, which adds to its charm. This isn't your pristine, slick kind of print, no, there are some happy accidents. It's like a little world, a city maybe, rendered in lines and shapes. Johnston's work feels a bit like Paul Klee's, that same love of playful abstraction and a sense of childlike wonder. Art's not about answers, it's about the questions, the back-and-forth.