Nouvelle île 1979

Pierre Alechinsky made this print, Nouvelle île, and it's a world of lines. Look at how they build up, not to describe things realistically, but to give a sense of a place, a feeling. It’s like he's inviting us to invent our own stories within this landscape. The texture comes alive because the lines are allowed to be themselves. They're not trying to hide anything; they overlap, diverge, and create a chaotic kind of harmony. Check out the bottom of the piece, it's almost like scribbles – yet those scribbles, viewed as a whole, suggests a field or a shore. And then there's that splash of red, an omega maybe, hanging there like a question mark or a portal into another dimension. Alechinsky reminds me of Joan Miró, who also built worlds out of playful symbols. What is art if not an island where we can all make landfall, and build our own homes?