Amok 1942

Ian Hugo made this etching, ‘Amok,’ and it’s a total mood. Look at the frenetic energy, those dark angular shapes lunging across the surface. I can almost feel Hugo in the act of making. Digging into that plate, wrestling with the acid, proofing, correcting. You know, printmaking is so physical, so full of surprises, but he seems to have everything under control. Or not. There's a horse-like creature being chased by three figures with sharp, spear-like forms for limbs. The title ‘Amok,’ hints at chaos, a kind of wild frenzy. I wonder if Hugo was thinking about the darker sides of human nature, our primal urges and the thin line between control and losing it. I think about Goya’s etchings, or the German Expressionists. Artists who weren’t afraid to confront the shadows. Hugo totally embraces that tradition, reminding us that art can be a mirror reflecting back both the beautiful and the unsettling parts of ourselves.