Coffee Beans 1974

Oleksandr Aksinin made this black and white drawing called Coffee Beans, but when exactly, we don't know. The image is like a hallucination, a bizarre interior space. There’s a cup of coffee floating at the top, and a row of spoons lined up at the bottom. What’s going on? The drawing is so precise, so meticulous. I wonder what Aksinin was thinking when he made this? He died young, in his thirties. What was it like to be him? What did he think about when he drank his coffee? Maybe he saw the world in patterns and repetitions, and this drawing is a way of mapping his mind, using lines and shapes to create a weird, dreamlike structure. It reminds me of Piranesi’s etchings of imaginary prisons, full of impossible perspectives and endless corridors. Art’s a conversation, right? Aksinin’s work speaks to other artists, across time and space. His drawing invites us to imagine, to question, to see the world in unexpected ways.