Five Six and Four (77-654) 1977

Ulfert Wilke made this beautiful little drawing with graphite and charcoal. It’s basically a field of soft powdery marks, out of which a simple alphabet of shapes emerge: a circle, an oval, a triangle. I can imagine him in the studio, charcoal in hand, coaxing these lines into existence. There’s a kind of searching that happens in the act of drawing: a line is drawn, felt, looked at, and then adjusted. Each mark isn't just about depiction; it's a record of a decision, a hesitation, a correction. That triangle especially feels precarious, as though it’s only just finding its balance. You can sense Wilke experimenting with how these shapes relate to each other, how the hard edge of the triangle plays against the generous curve of the circle. There’s something incredibly generous about his practice. Artists are always looking at each other, responding, and riffing on what’s come before. In the making of something new, they keep the conversation going. I feel as if I understand something about how drawings happen just by looking at it.