My Big Week 1968

Jirí Balcar made this intaglio print called 'My Big Week', where an image emerges through line and texture, somewhere in the former Czechoslovakia. I imagine Balcar hunched over his plate, scratching away, revealing an image. It looks like he's carving out the quiet moments in a woman's day, each horizontal band a new scene. I see her waking, stretching, dreaming, resting. He’s using the material of the plate to evoke the feeling of skin and cloth. That top figure has these floral marks, and they remind me of Bonnard’s interiors where patterns come alive. The lines create a sense of depth and shadow, so cool! It’s like he's not just showing us something, but letting us feel it, too. You can see Balcar in conversation with other painters, pulling ideas and forms, making something new. He shows how we can feel the world in our bodies, our days, and in the marks we make, together.