Aliens 1984

Oleksandr Aksinin made this etching, called 'Aliens', sometime before 1985. It's all in monochrome, a very fine network of lines and dots which build up the image, and it reminds me that artmaking is always additive. Like a slow layering, a building up, of marks and meanings. There's an otherworldly quality to the image – a figure bound and supporting this bizarre, fish-like structure, all encased in a cage decorated with dice. Look at the contrast between the density of the dark background and the lighter, intricate patterns within the central form, which creates a sense of depth and mystery. And then there are these playful dice, scattered around, suggesting chance and fate. I love how Aksinin uses simple tools to create such a complex and imaginative world. This piece has the hallucinatory quality of some of Klee's etchings, or perhaps even the surreal visions of Hieronymus Bosch. It invites you to lose yourself in its strangeness and ponder the unknown, and reminds us that art is a conversation across time, full of echoes and reinterpretations.