Stilleven met gemberpot, wijnglas en kom 1888 - 1934

Willem Adrianus Grondhout made this print of a ginger pot, wine glass and bowl, and there is something quite nice about the directness of the mark-making. It’s an etching, so the physical process involves drawing into a waxy ground on a metal plate, then dunking the plate in acid, which bites into the exposed lines. It's indirect in a way, because you can't see the line as it's made. But once printed it’s like seeing the ghost of a drawing. The varying depths of line seem to create a vibration on the surface. I keep coming back to the way the table cloth is rendered with these little vertical lines, like rain. It makes the objects feel grounded, as if they are anchored to the earth. It reminds me a little of Giorgio Morandi, an Italian painter who made endless still lifes of bottles. Both artists share a way of finding endless fascination in the simplest of forms. And, like Morandi, Grondhout shows us that art is an ongoing conversation, embracing ambiguity and multiple interpretations.