Untitled 1934

This lithograph was made by Carlos Merida, though when I don’t know. The composition is a dance between what looks like geometric architectural forms and dark smudges of charcoal or ink. It’s like a half-remembered dream, where clarity and ambiguity are intertwined. I love the way he lets the material do its thing. The smudges aren’t trying to be anything other than smudges, and the lines are confident in their stark simplicity. Look at how the charcoal gathers in some areas, creating these rich, velvety blacks, while other parts are almost translucent. The contrast gives the piece a real depth, a sense of air moving through the space. There’s one particularly juicy smudge near the top that seems to hover like a dark cloud, anchoring the whole composition with its weight. Merida's work reminds me of Paul Klee, in the way he blends abstraction with figuration, but there's something uniquely his own, a kind of melancholic poetry. Art is like an ongoing conversation, and it’s always exciting to see how artists build on each other’s ideas while forging their own path.