Exlibris Haniuk W. A. 1976

This etching, Exlibris Haniuk W. A., was made by Oleksandr Aksinin, but we don't know exactly when. It feels like an image pulled from a half-remembered dream, doesn't it? The stark contrast of black ink on paper gives a real graphic punch. Look at the brickwork, so meticulously rendered, then the explosion of dots in the sky, a totally different kind of mark-making. It’s like two worlds colliding, the rational and the chaotic. There’s a figure in the middle, all wrapped up, mysterious, presiding over this scene. Is it a guardian, or a prisoner? The whole thing is so precisely rendered, you can almost feel the artist's hand moving with painstaking care. Then, there's this weird crowd waving sticks behind the wall, it makes me think of Goya, but Aksinin has his own strange vision, for sure. Ultimately, it’s an invitation to piece together your own narrative from these surreal fragments.