Untitled (Totemic Figures) 1950

This untitled etching by Joseph Goto is full of spindly, fantastic figures. You can almost feel Goto's hand moving across the plate, scratching and needling a whole universe into being. I can imagine him hunched over the metal, lost in a world of his own making. Each line feels tentative, exploratory, like he’s not quite sure what will emerge. Those marks gather together like a conversation that slowly reveals a hidden world. It makes me think about other artists who create their own cosmologies. Like Hilma af Klint, or Forrest Bess, or even some of the Chicago Imagists. Goto is conjuring up something deeply personal, maybe even a little bit spooky. It shows how artists feed off one another, borrowing and transforming ideas across time. What do you think?