Day and Night 1938

M.C. Escher made ‘Day and Night’ with a woodcut. He’s playing with a precise black and white, but it’s the shapes in between, the process of making and unmaking that sings to me. The texture is so important. Look at those birds morphing, one shade turning into another, becoming something new. The way he uses the wood, it’s so hands-on, you know? You can almost feel the knife cutting into the grain. I see it in how he uses light and shadow, making the surface alive. There is such an amazing sense of movement in this still, graphic medium. It reminds me of something like Agnes Martin's grids, but here the grid is implied and then breaks open, with the world forming and un-forming. Escher’s work reminds us that art can be like a conversation, moving across different times and ideas. It’s about seeing how things can be more than one thing at once. He invites us to embrace uncertainty and find beauty in the in-between spaces.