Dawn 1959

Peter Takal made this print called Dawn, and it's like a whisper of a memory. I see a field of scribbled flowers under a heavy, grey sky. The marks are so delicate; it’s as if Takal barely touched the surface, letting the image emerge from the ether. And then, there's that chair smack bang in the middle, almost like a ghostly figure waiting for someone to sit down. I wonder if Takal imagined a figure there, or what it would feel like to sit on it. It makes me think of other artists who've used a monochrome palette - they’re often chasing some kind of raw, immediate expression, stripping away the distraction of colour. This feels so much like a personal meditation, an attempt to capture a fleeting moment. It’s as if he's saying, "Hey, look at this," but in the quietest voice possible. And it works; I’m looking, and listening, hard.