Blue Dusk 1980

Jacob Kainen made this print, Blue Dusk, using a variety of techniques. Aquatint, etching, and drypoint, can you imagine? I love that! It has a hazy, dreamy quality, like looking through a rain-streaked window at twilight. See the broad strokes of muted blue and the stark white vertical rectangle on the right? It's like a door or a portal. Then you've got those little splatters of red and the three cloud-like forms, floating. What was Kainen thinking? Maybe he was trying to capture a fleeting moment, an impression, a feeling that's hard to put into words. I imagine him wiping the plate, adding acid here, scratching there, letting the accidents happen. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin, a fellow traveler, someone trying to find the sublime in the subtle. You know, artists are always in conversation with each other, across time and space, riffing on themes, and pushing boundaries. And for me, that’s what art is all about.