Untitled 1952

Ernst Wilhelm Nay made this print in 1952, and it looks like he was really thinking about how forms bump up against each other. It’s all about process. I love how the black lines careen across the surface, like shards of glass, or maybe lightning bolts. There’s something so direct and physical about the way he’s laid down those marks, a kind of urgency that gets me excited. The blue feels almost watery, a cool contrast to the harsh blacks and the softer light green. Look at the way he layers the colours and lines, building up a kind of visual static. Nay seems to be in conversation with artists like Kandinsky, who were also exploring abstraction as a way to express inner states of feeling. It’s a reminder that art is never created in a vacuum, but always in dialogue with what has come before, an ongoing exchange.