The Shooting Gallery III 1940

Toyen made this drawing, The Shooting Gallery III, using ink on paper. Look at how Toyen uses tiny, obsessive marks, almost like she's building a world from scratch with each stroke of the pen. There is a cracked egg with the face of a young girl, surrounded by loose strands of hair. The surface is alive with hatching, creating shadows that almost seem to breathe. The repetition of marks gives the image a strange kind of depth, inviting you to get lost in the details. Then notice how the foreground is filled with stones that have been outlined but left unshaded. Toyen’s work, like that of Leonora Carrington, invites us into an alternate reality where the everyday is infused with poetic and unsettling imagery, where the subconscious takes center stage. Art is never just about what you see; it's about how it makes you feel, dream, and question.