Looky - ykooL 1994

Gladys Nilsson made this etching, called Looky-ykool, in 1994. Check out the way the lines wiggle and squirm, kinda like they're tickling the paper! That frenetic energy reminds me that artmaking is all about the process, the doing, and less about a perfect end result. The surface is alive with tiny marks, a testament to the artist's hand. The whole thing feels like a dense, tangled garden of line work. Look at the hair on the central figure, it's like a whole universe of tiny curls and swirls, all working together to create this amazing texture. It's so playful and free. This piece feels very much of a piece with the work of the Chicago Imagists, those guys who embraced humor, the grotesque, and the wildly absurd. Art doesn't always have to make perfect sense, right? Sometimes it's more fun to embrace the chaos.