Plate III from the portfolio Vulcanologies 1970

This is Plate III from the portfolio Vulcanologies by Pierre Alechinsky, and it’s got this raw, energetic vibe going on. You can almost feel the artist digging into the plate, scraping and carving to get these marks. I imagine Alechinsky hunched over his work, totally absorbed, letting his mind wander as he worked. There's this volcano shape, right, but it’s also like a brain, with all these thoughts bubbling up and spilling over. He’s using color in such an intuitive way. The blues and reds and browns, they aren’t just colors, they are feelings. And then there is a frog… It reminds me of the way artists like Joan Miró would just let their subconscious guide their hand, creating these strange, playful worlds. There's a real conversation happening here between artists and across time. It's like they’re all riffing off each other, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. Each one exploring, through intuition, and through process. It is not about answers, just lots of good questions.