Petroglyph 1935 - 1942

Lala Eve Rivol made this drawing, "Petroglyph", with crayon on paper. It's interesting how the red marks float on a textured grey ground, a little like how memory itself floats in the mind. It's like a game of exquisite corpse; you begin with something familiar, but end up in a place you've never seen before. There's a real tactile quality to the crayon, isn't there? You can almost feel the grain of the paper beneath those marks. See how Rivol builds up the color, layering stroke upon stroke, until these enigmatic shapes emerge? Like a visual language we've almost forgotten. Look at the little, spiky sun shapes that recur. They seem to hum with a kind of primordial energy, like cells dividing, or stars exploding. It's kind of like you’re looking at some kind of secret code. This piece reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint's abstract diagrams, or even some of Forrest Bess's visionary drawings. They all seem to tap into a similar wellspring of intuitive mark-making. It’s a great example of how art isn’t about answers, but about the ongoing conversation we have with the world around us.