Detail van moskee (?) in Perzië Possibly 1925 - 1927

A.G.A. van Eelde took this photo of a mosque detail in Persia, we don't know exactly when. What you see here is probably a photograph, but it looks like an etching. The surface is highly worked with pattern. This makes me think about my own working methods as a painter: building up, rubbing back, adding, taking away. The symmetry, the repetition of forms – these are like building blocks, and maybe they're a kind of visual mantra. Look at the ovoid shapes, one after the other. Each one is different, but they create a rhythm of light and dark that is both soothing and enlivening. I'm reminded of the work of Agnes Martin, who used a similar kind of repetitive mark-making to create a sense of calm and contemplation. But here, there's also a sense of the handmade. You can almost feel the hand of the person who created this, painstakingly working each detail, a human touch is definitely present. Art, like life, is a constant process of becoming.