Hephaestus 1968

Harry Hoehn made this print, Hephaestus, using etching, and the approach to mark making seems pretty intuitive. It’s all lines, going off in all directions, coming together into a kind of abstracted figure. I’m really drawn to the way the texture and the physicality of the medium shape how we feel when we look at it. With this etching technique, you don’t get to hide much, the way the tool bites into the surface of the metal plate is quite clear to see. Check out the big burst of lines in the top left quadrant of the image. It’s like an explosion of energy, the artist's hand really moving. Seeing an artist like Hoehn, or someone like Dorothea Rockburne, they remind me that art is an ongoing conversation, a process of exchange and influence across time, open to ambiguity and many interpretations.