#09: El Árbol (The Tree) 2008

Marina Pallares made this linocut print, ‘El Arbol,’ in black and white. It’s a card, maybe for a game, featuring a tree. The way the tree’s drawn with these tight, swirling lines, you can almost feel the artist digging into the linoleum, carving out each groove. The linework is just gorgeous, isn’t it? Look at the sky around the tree, how Pallares uses these curved lines to create a sense of depth, like the tree is standing in a hollow. And then there are these bottles hanging from the branches. I love that touch of surrealism. This isn’t just any tree; it’s a tree bearing the fruits of something else, something a little wild. It reminds me a bit of Kiki Smith's prints, where the body and nature intertwine in strange and wonderful ways. Just like in Kiki Smith’s work, here the boundaries between what’s natural and what’s human-made get delightfully blurred. Art is an ongoing conversation, always responding and reinterpreting.