Rock

Rock from 2019 represents a shift in Heyman's practice toward observed natural forms, set apart from the political testimony work that has defined much of his career. The combination of relief and drypoint on cotton paper allows for two distinct mark-making registers: broad carved tonal areas from the relief block and fine incised linework from the drypoint plate. Cotton paper, softer and more absorbent than standard etching paper, holds the burr of drypoint with depth, producing velvety dark lines. The subject — a single rock — invites a meditative reading, the kind of close looking Heyman has applied to faces and bodies, here turned toward inanimate matter. The print suggests an interest in surface, weight, and geological rather than political time. Within Heyman's wider output it sits alongside landscape and still-life experiments in which the artist tests printmaking techniques outside the portrait format that occupies most of his practice. The relief impression provides ground while the drypoint articulates fissure and grain.