LAURA NEUFELD: Linoleum block cutting offers a lot of freedom. Linoleum is very soft and the linocuts, he could produce at home using something as simple as the back of a spoon to print the block.
When you're doing a linocut all the white areas are where he's removed material from the linoleum block. And the black areas are where he has left the block uncarved. So in the hair of the young farmer, you really see him playing with how to make marks in the block. And most exciting is how he handles the carving of the face and you see this kind of weathered quality and how he creates these sort of dramatic highlights on the cheekbones and in the tendons of the neck. You feel the labor of this worker.
And this is particularly interesting to see two impressions side-by-side. In the impression where it's only black you can really focus on how he's composed the folds of the shirt and the great detail in the ear and in the features of the face. And when you then see this sumptuous landscape, suddenly you're focused on the environment that this person is in and it totally changes the work.
