Ex-Libris for Liudmyla Iniushyna
Alexander Aksinin
- ID
- Г-IV-4086
- Author
- Alexander Aksinin
- Name
- Ex-Libris for Liudmyla Iniushyna
- Date of creation
- 1974
- Technique
- etching
- Material
- imprint on paper
- Dimensions (height x width, cm)
- 10.4 x 10
- Type
- printmaking
- Provenance
- Courtesy of V. Onusaitis, 1987
This is Alexander Aksinin's early work, which was created before the formation of his unique creative style. The etching is made with humor and banter over a friend.
The angel is imprisoned in a cage! This is how the author graphically expressed his friend’s suffering: after graduating from an art higher institution, the artist was sent to work as a fashion designer at a knitwear factory.
A bird cage hangs on the needle. In some places it is wrapped in cobwebs between the bars (hint of knitted jersey). Inside the cage, the author schematically depicts a bent female figure wearing a long cloak, felt boots, with angel wings behind her back, round glasses on the same round face, and curls on her head. Tiny faces with wings fly around the cage, hinting at those who are not "stuck" inside. Several grains, bird’s food, are scattered on the cage’s cobwebbed floor. Some of them fеll down without being eaten.
A snake-like thread is threaded through the needle's eye. The initials "LN" (Liudmyla Nikolaievna) appear on the left, between the twists and turns. The inscription "EXLIBRIS / INIUSHYNA" is at the top, above the horizontal of the needle. To the right of the inscription is a continuation of the thread, with grains for birds in its bend. At the bottom, under the cage’s floor, one can notice a circle with the artist's initial "a" inside a triangle.
Lіudmуla Iniushyna (b. 1948), a fashion designer. She graduated from the Lviv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts. Between 1972 and 2011, the artist worked at the "Kyіanka" knitting factory in Kyiv.