To Engelyna Bulyakovska 1982

Oleksandr Aksinin made this drawing – To Engelyna Bulyakovska – using pen and ink. Just imagine him hunched over the paper, carefully building up the image with those tiny, precise lines. Look at those strange, pod-like shapes at the top, each one covered in faces. It reminds me of when I’m painting, and a form starts to emerge, then morphs into something else entirely. What do those faces mean? Are they watching? Judging? Aksinin is dealing with some big themes. You can see echoes of other artists grappling with similar ideas – maybe a little bit of Klee, or even Goya. That dense black ink creates such a mysterious atmosphere. And there’s a real tension between the detail of the drawing and the enigmatic quality of the imagery. It’s like he's inviting us into his own personal world, full of symbols and secrets. But here’s the thing: what he's doing has a lot to say to us. It's this kind of dialogue across time and space that keeps art alive.