Vijf handtekeningen geplakt op een blad met bloemen en decoratieve rand 1904

George Lourens Kiers created this collage, "Vijf handtekeningen geplakt op een blad met bloemen en decoratieve rand," on paper. It's all in monochrome, a delicate dance of greys achieved through ink and graphite. I imagine Kiers carefully arranging these signatures, each a unique flourish of personality, onto the floral background. The signatures themselves are like tiny drawings, expressive and personal, floating above the meticulous details of flowers rendered in graphite. The act of pasting transforms the sheet of paper, turning it into a site for visual inquiry. You know, when I look at this, I think about how signatures are a painterly act, aren’t they? It makes me think about Warhol's signature and Cy Twombly's gestural marks. Kiers’ composition is more like a garden where each name is a different kind of bloom. Artists are always having this conversation across time, you know? Taking inspiration and finding new meaning in unexpected places. It's like we're all just trying to sign our names to the world, in our own way.