Hoofden van Afrikaanse vrouwen c. 1916 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made these studies of ‘Hoofden van Afrikaanse vrouwen’ with pencil on paper, and to me, it's all about that pencil line, how it dances and feels its way across the page. The artist is working to capture a likeness, but you also sense the thinking, the revising, and the pure pleasure of drawing itself. The repeated lines, the way one form bleeds into another; it feels like the artist is feeling their way into these faces. I imagine him really looking at the models, trying to understand the structure of the face, thinking about the planes and curves, and then translating this understanding onto paper through the simple act of mark-making. It reminds me of drawings by Picasso, artists looking and learning from one another across time. It’s this shared language of seeing and drawing, constantly evolving, always open to interpretation, that makes painting so exciting.