Sun

Bernard Childs

In the 1950s Childs developed an abstract picture language, in which he worked with archetypical signs and symbols and with the methods of surrealistic automatism. Childs used electrically powered tools to work directly on his plates. He lent velvet-like structures and a vivid, skilful line direction to his prints.

In “Sun”, Childs depicts what could be magnetic fields or a solar flare bursting from the face of the sun, itself depicted as a ball of tension whose lines are tight and straight, emitting outward from the center. His use of power tools more accurately provides the force and random staccato needed to render celestial events than the traditional scraper, burin, or scribe to which intaglio art is mostly relegated.