Brown Trout 1978

This is Neil Welliver's "Brown Trout," and from the looks of it, it's an etching. The whole thing is a flurry of marks, a kind of controlled chaos that, when you step back, suddenly snaps into focus. I find myself drawn to the surface, the way Welliver builds up these tiny, precise lines to create this scene. There's this sense of materiality – you can almost feel the scratch of the etching tool on the plate. Look at the water, how he uses these flowing lines to give it movement and depth. And then, those trout, each scale defined by these meticulous dots, it's a real testament to process, to the sheer act of making. Welliver was known for his large-scale paintings of the Maine wilderness, and this print feels like a concentrated dose of that. Like with Fairfield Porter, you get the feeling Welliver is trying to capture something essential about being in the landscape. Art is such an ongoing conversation, an exchange of marks and ideas across time.