Canonical Image 1979

Oleksandr Aksinin made this image, *Canonical Image*, with what looks like watercolor, and maybe ink, on paper. I love the way Aksinin builds up these layers of translucent color, stripe by stripe. The blues are so deep. And then this surprising mauve stripe behind the red central form. It’s like he’s building an environment, a mood. The red figure is so strange - I want to call it a robot, but it’s too human, too vulnerable. It has these little feet, dangling, and a single vertical mark, right in the middle of its head. Looking at the overall texture of the painting, it makes me think of Paul Klee and his childlike playfulness with form and color, but with something darker, stranger, underneath. Art's this ongoing conversation, right? Artists riffing off each other, mixing ideas, creating something totally new. It's never just one thing. It’s ambiguous, open.