New York 1951

This is Fiske Boyd’s ‘New York’ in black ink on paper. I can imagine Boyd bending over a block of wood or lino, carefully carving into the surface with sharp tools. The negative space has been cut away so that only the lines of the image will hold ink. It’s a city scene, chaotic, frenetic, a jumble of buildings, roads, and vehicles. I wonder what it was like for Boyd to create such an image? The careful labor of a print, the cutting, the inking, and the pressure all come together in the final image. The sharp, jagged lines of the buildings loom overhead, while the cars below scuttle along like beetles. The texture is palpable, isn’t it? You can almost feel the rough surface of the carved block. Boyd is in conversation with artists through time who seek to capture the energy of modern life. Painting—or printing in this instance—is a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and allowing for multiple interpretations.