Untitled 1942

This work by Kukryniksy seems to have been built from thin washes of ink and colour laid over sparse pencil underdrawings. It feels like the kind of thing you build up, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I imagine the artist making this in the mid-20th century, trying to make sense of an absurd political moment with their pens and inks. The colour is quite muted, and the lines are very controlled. Everything is in its place. There's this sense of almost classical caricature with a slightly surreal, almost dreamlike quality. It is a very direct and visceral response to the events that were unfolding at the time, similar to the political cartoons of artists like Philip Guston. You know, artists are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity, responding to each other in their work. It's embodied expression at its best, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning, leaving you in a place of ambiguity and uncertainty.