My hospital bed 1990

Hubertine Heijermans made this small, intimate watercolour painting, ‘My hospital bed’, at an unknown date. What strikes me is the handling of the watery medium. You can almost feel the artist tilting the paper, letting the pigments bleed and mingle, creating these soft-edged forms. It's all about the process of applying colour, not worrying too much about precision. There's a real sensitivity to the material qualities, too. The way the washes pool and stain, creating subtle textures. Look at how the yellow ochre of the blanket drips and flows, like a liquid memory, contrasting with the cool blues and greys of the pillows and sky. See those dark indigo marks creating a storm above the bed? That captures something about the emotional feeling of being unwell, that vulnerability that’s heightened when you are in a hospital bed. You get a sense of art as an ongoing conversation between artists here, it reminds me of Bonnard and his domestic interiors - where the personal and the painterly come together. With Heijermans, there's this invitation to experience the world through a subjective lens. It's all about embracing ambiguity, rather than chasing some fixed meaning.