Schets van gips voor buste Ronald de Leeuw Possibly 2008 - 2015

Here's a plaster bust, or sketch for a bust, made by Tony van de Vorst. It's off-white, almost ghostly, and unfinished. Imagine van de Vorst in his studio, coaxing this form out of the raw material. I bet it was a lot of back and forth, adding and subtracting, a real wrestling match with the plaster itself. You can see the process, the layers and strokes, where he's built up the form, especially in the jacket. It’s kind of thin in some places, thick in others. The way the light catches the surface makes you think about touch, about the artist's hand. He must have been thinking about portraiture, and what it means to capture someone's essence in three dimensions. It reminds me of Rodin, how he left his sculptures rough and alive. I'm sure van de Vorst was looking at other artists too. It’s all one big conversation, this art thing. No one works in a vacuum. And this bust, it's like a moment in that conversation, caught in time, and now we're part of it too.