In Charting the Course , Olga Kataeva-Rochford captures a silent and decisive moment: the one where the journey begins even before departure. Two figures lean over a nautical chart, their bodies forming an arc of concentration around the route to come. At their feet, a cat observes—a familiar presence, a motionless witness to the call of the open sea.

Inspired by the artist's voyages, this linocut evokes the moment when one chooses a direction, when one imagines distant shores and still unknown passages. The map becomes a living territory: lines, roads, and contours intersect and respond to one another, transforming the engraved surface into a space for projection and dreaming.

The stark contrast of black and white, characteristic of linocut, highlights the graphic power of the composition and the materiality of the gesture. Each size, each irregularity of the ink, recalls the manual work and the slow rhythm of artisanal printing.

At the crossroads of maritime art and poetic realism, Tracing the Route is a work about passage, decision-making, and inner freedom. It is part of a series dedicated to the gestures of sailors—those discreet yet essential gestures that connect the known world to the unknown.

This contemporary print is aimed at collectors of contemporary graphic art and prints , lovers of contemporary linocut , sensitive to contemporary maritime art and the travel imagination.