Polakt 1936

Mikuláš Galanda made this print, Polakt, using black ink on paper, a striking monochrome image. I imagine the artist carefully layering the marks, building up the image bit by bit. It’s a figure, maybe a woman? Or maybe the idea of a woman, a symbol. The white ink dances across the dark ground, creating these flowing forms. I wonder what Galanda was thinking, what he was feeling as he made it. Did he want to capture an emotion? Or was he simply exploring the relationship between line and form? Each stroke feels deliberate, yet the overall effect is one of fluidity and grace. It reminds me a little of some of Picasso’s more figurative etchings, but with its own distinct, almost melancholic mood. Painters, we’re always looking at each other, aren’t we? We steal, we borrow, we transform. Each work a response to what’s come before, a conversation across time. And that’s what makes painting so endlessly fascinating, isn’t it? The ambiguity, the possibility of multiple interpretations. It's like, you never really know what it means, and that’s the beauty of it.