Elizabeth Street, Sydney 1939

Dorrit Black made this multicoloured woodcut, Elizabeth Street, Sydney, sometime in the 1920s. The flat planes of colour describe the urban architecture and landscape. I love the way Dorrit simplifies the scene into these graphic blocks, it reminds me of making collages! The texture here is super interesting. You can almost feel the grain of the woodblock and the way the ink sits on the paper. Look at the blue lines of the road – the way the colour is broken up gives it this feeling of movement and energy. The whole print is a masterclass in colour relationships, with a playful mix of warm and cool tones. The way Dorrit overlays different colours creates depth and vibrancy, and all this from a simple woodblock. I see echoes of early 20th-century modernists like the Vorticists in this piece. But, ultimately, Black has her own distinctive voice, an interesting combination of abstraction with a sense of place. There's something very satisfying about the way it all comes together. A really unique way of seeing and experiencing the world.