Cockades of Asclepius 1979

Oleksandr Aksinin made "Cockades of Asclepius" in 1979. It's got this otherworldly, dreamlike quality, like something glimpsed through a kaleidoscope. The whole piece is built from these tiny, repetitive marks, creating texture with color. Aksinin's commitment to process is clear, a meditative act of building up the image dot by dot. The palette is unreal, contrasting vibrant pinks and greens with deep blacks. The marks are applied so consistently that I think of them almost as pixels. The central form looks like a geometric abstraction of something organic, maybe even bodily. And it's echoed by the shapes and patterns around it. It’s as if Aksinin is trying to reconcile geometry and the body, the cosmic and the intimate. It reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint’s symbolic language. Aksinin's work invites us to embrace ambiguity and find our own way through its intricate layers.