Heuvelachtig landschap met bomen 1939 - 2009

Kees Stoop made this small landscape drawing with graphite. It’s like looking at a field through a screen door. Stoop creates a subtle contrast between the close and distant space. Can you see how the trees become a dense dark mass and then dissolve into the background? He painstakingly constructed a world with tiny marks. It's fascinating to think about the time it took him. What was he thinking? Did he have a particular view, or was this place imagined? The layering reminds me of pointillism. Stoop created an optical sensation, a whole from tiny particles. His picture plane is almost entirely covered, and that's so compelling to me. He really committed to the idea! It reminds me of the work of Agnes Martin, whose drawings also explore perception and process. Stoop has a point of view, but doesn’t force it on you. Artists are constantly responding to one another, building on what came before. It's like a big, ongoing conversation about how we see and experience the world.