Brief aan Ina van Eibergen Santhagens-Waller c. 1878 - 1938

This letter, from 1912, by Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst, looks like it was written with a scratchy pen, full of starts and stops. There’s something immediate about the handwriting, like seeing the artist’s thoughts take shape on the page. The words, in ink, are crammed together, some scratched out, reflecting a process of constant revision, a kind of beautiful mess that resonates with the way I approach painting. It is intriguing to see what I imagine to be the mind of the artist at work. Note the way a line drifts slightly off course, as if the pen had a mind of its own – that's the kind of gesture that I love. It reminds me of a similar approach to writing and artmaking by the painter Cy Twombly, who embraced chance and improvisation in his work. Ultimately, it’s these imperfections that make the letter so compelling – a reminder that art, in all its forms, is a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas and experiences.