Compositie met plant en gezicht 1943 - 2009

Curator: So here we have Rein Dool's "Compositie met plant en gezicht", made sometime between 1943 and 2009. It's a print, ink on paper, held here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Oh, wow. That blue just slaps you in the face, doesn't it? It's almost violently serene. It also makes me think about a strange dream, something both organic and profoundly alien. Curator: It’s interesting you pick up on the organic, because if we delve a little into Dool’s practice, we see he had a knack for blurring the line between the natural and the constructed. You'll often see figures emerging almost like biomorphic machines. Editor: Machines, eh? I'm noticing how the shapes are built with strong black lines and contrasting with negative spaces, almost mimicking industrial techniques but with such fluidity. Like blueprint meeting blossom. Was Dool concerned with mass production, or craft traditions perhaps? Curator: He absolutely would have been aware, like so many artists, of navigating those waters. Looking closer at how the print was achieved might illuminate that balance. It's ink, but how's the pressure been applied, what's the layering like? This kind of figuration really makes you think about how something gets 'made' visually, doesn't it? Editor: It really does! What I keep coming back to is how those two abstracted forms—the "plant" and "face" – they are kind of holding a silent conversation. Do you see a tension or maybe some hidden harmony there? Curator: It feels a little fraught to me, which might explain the powerful charge the colours carry. Perhaps a dialogue is occurring—a push and pull about presence. I notice I bring my own interpretations coloured with our present moment too. I wonder if others can feel the vibration? Editor: I certainly felt something palpable just by its aesthetic language. Thinking about how our conversation, hopefully, gives people access beyond a single reading, really brings Rein Dool’s creative work into new perspective. Curator: And that's just it – that art piece becomes active with us, especially by discussing the methods that delivered it to us, isn't it? It is a constant reveal and a constant dialogue with material and mind.