Moon and well 2019

Pavlo Makov made this etching titled "Moon and well" with needle and acid, and it's a real head-scratcher, isn't it? You can see how the artist worked, scraping back the dark ground to reveal the lighter shapes beneath. I imagine Makov hunched over his plate, coaxing out these forms with tiny tools. What was he thinking as he scratched away at the surface? Maybe he was thinking about a magic portal between the celestial and the domestic. A house sits squarely at the bottom, while above it we see what seems to be an octagonal well. Then, a beam stretches up to the moon. This beam almost looks like a key to unlock something. It all hangs together with a kind of spooky harmony. We all get our ideas from other artists. This kind of precise, yet haunted imagery has its roots in surrealism, but Makov makes it his own. It's like he's whispering secrets, and we're all trying to listen.