Twee vrouwen en een vogel 1895 - 1935

This woodcut, ‘Twee vrouwen en een vogel’ by Mathieu Lauweriks presents two women and a bird in a simple, graphic style. The image is made from stark black and white shapes, with everything reduced to bold outlines and flat planes. There is a real sense of process and labor in those lines. What I love about this piece is how the materiality of the woodcut comes through. You can practically feel the knife as it carves away at the block. Look at the way the bird’s wing is formed from these parallel lines, or the rough texture of the kneeling woman’s dress; it’s the artist’s hand made visible. Lauweriks reminds me a little of someone like Emil Nolde. Both have this raw, emotive approach to printmaking, like they're wrestling something profound out of the material itself. This piece is more than just a picture, it is a record of someone grappling with an idea, and trying to bring it into form. And that’s what art is all about, right?