Gate to the Garden. Alice in Wonderland 1976

This artwork is a print made by Oleksandr Aksinin, titled ‘Gate to the Garden. Alice in Wonderland’. Just look at the colour and mark-making; the tone is really distinctive. There is something otherworldly about the eerie shade of green and the lines that make up the image. I imagine Aksinin carefully etching these marks one by one, letting the composition emerge slowly, almost meditatively. I wonder if Aksinin felt like Alice herself when he made this, falling into a strange world and not knowing what was next. The work feels open-ended. The gate to the garden is just a suggestion of a real gate, and it makes me consider what lies beyond. It's not a real place, but a place that exists only in the imagination. It reminds me of Magritte, and how he made paintings of places he had never been. The dialogue between artists has always been important, where people pick up ideas and pass them on. As viewers, we can join in with our own readings, embracing the uncertainty and mystery that artists propose.