Kundalini 1984

Oleksandr Aksinin made this drawing, Kundalini, sometime before 1985, with ink on paper. It's the kind of drawing you get lost in, right? All those tiny marks. The texture in this piece, built up from obsessive little lines and dots, feels almost hallucinatory. Look at the contrast between the solid black areas and the porous, stippled grays. It’s like Aksinin is charting a whole universe with just a pen. And that snake rising from the center, it's so smooth and pale compared to the rest. It gives a strange sense of depth. You know, it reminds me a bit of Hilma af Klint, that interest in the spiritual, in unseen forces. Aksinin probably wasn’t thinking about her but, in art, you start seeing these weird connections across time. It's all just one big conversation anyway, isn't it? And the best art leaves you with questions, not answers.