Exlibris of Y.Polovnickov 1976

Oleksandr Aksinin made this bookplate print, Exlibris of Y.Polovnickov, in 1976. The aqua monochrome gives the piece a slightly surreal and unsettling quality, but it's also kind of charming, you know? Looking at the surface, you can see how the artist has used thin, precise lines to create this intricate little world. There's a kind of hypnotic symmetry, but it's not rigid, which brings a playfulness to the image. The cluster of people at the top reminds me of a fantastical bouquet or maybe some kind of alien collective, and the airplane overhead makes me think about journeys. Aksinin's work in general has this mix of folk art and visionary strangeness. His style reminds me a bit of artists like Paul Klee, in how they both create these really personal, symbolic visual languages. It's like they're inviting us into their own special worlds, and in the end art is like this ongoing conversation between artists across time.