La Mouche (Fly) 1960

Mario Avati made this black and white print, La Mouche, sometime during the last century. His artistic process embraced the unpredictable nature of printmaking, allowing the materials to guide his hand. Up close, the texture feels almost palpable. The dark areas are so dense, like velvety shadows. The way the light catches on the wings, you can almost feel the fuzz. Look at the body of the fly itself, so dark and compact, and then those delicate antennae reaching out like whispers. It’s this contrast between the solid and the ephemeral that really grabs me. There’s something so raw and immediate about Avati’s work, a real feeling of being in the moment with the materials. You can see a similar attention to detail in the prints of someone like Kiki Smith, especially the way she uses the language of printmaking to describe the fragile, vulnerable aspects of the body. But who knows, maybe he was just trying to capture the annoying buzz of a fly on a hot summer day.