Untitled 1958

This is an etching by Jaroslav Serych, and what strikes me first is how he seems to be making marks from memory. There is something ghostly and ephemeral about the arrangement. Looking closely, I see how the surface is alive with tiny scratches and bites. It’s a testament to the physical, almost violent, processes that etching involves. Serych coaxes such a delicate, almost fragile image, from such an unforgiving medium. My eye is drawn to the cluster of wiry lines at the bottom. They seem to tangle and knot together like unruly thoughts or forgotten dreams. It feels as though the artist allowed his hand to wander freely, embracing the unpredictable nature of the medium. Serych’s work reminds me of other artists preoccupied with the subconscious, like Odilon Redon. But whereas Redon conjures dreamlike visions of another world, Serych seems more interested in the act of remembering itself. He presents us with the trace of a memory, not the memory itself, and in doing so, invites us to lose ourselves in the ambiguity of the image.