Untitled (Large Abstract Figure) c. 1948

James V. Harvey created this print, Untitled (Large Abstract Figure), using etching techniques. I can imagine him hunched over a metal plate, working into it with acid, a slow, deliberate process of mark-making. The image is both ghostly and architectural, with layers of gray and touches of golden hues. There's a sense of the figure implied, but it's been fractured, broken apart, and reassembled. I wonder what Harvey was thinking about as he built up these layers? Was he exploring memory, identity, or the fragmented nature of experience? That one looping line in the top left—it has a sense of searching, almost like a doodle that's trying to find its way. It reminds me of some of Gorky's more surreal, biomorphic forms. Painters are always in conversation, riffing off one another, finding new ways to see. The act of painting or printmaking becomes a way of thinking through feeling. These marks, these shapes, they're not just representations—they're traces of a mind at work, inviting us to join the conversation.