Exit from the Suburban Train 1955 - 1957

Ivan Stepanovich Gomenkov made "Exit from the Suburban Train" as a woodcut print, using black ink on paper. It’s all about the cut of the block, where the stark contrast between light and shadow does all the work. The texture is built from the density of the marks, with the white lines of the paper slicing through the figures and the architecture. Look how the artist varies the marks; sometimes they’re thick, sometimes thin, creating a rhythm that pulls you through the crowd. Check out the vertical lines making up the pathway, how they give a sense of movement, almost like the ground is rushing beneath your feet. It all adds to the emotional feeling of being swept along with everyone else. Gomenkov’s use of this graphic style feels in conversation with the German Expressionists, like Kirchner and Heckel. But whereas those guys were all about anxiety and alienation, Gomenkov finds a kind of stoic beauty in the everyday. The piece offers a vision of art as a form which embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations.