Man en vrouw op bank 1972

Rein Dool made this drawing of a man and woman on a bench, we don't know when, using rapid and sketchy lines in black ink on what seems to be a white paper. You can almost see the artist, Rein Dool, moving around the paper, trying to nail down the forms, maybe even wrestling with the image a little. What's so interesting is the way he uses line to create volume and shadow. You can almost feel the weight of the figures and their poses through the economical gestures he makes. I keep thinking about the artist’s hand moving across the surface, testing out different possibilities, and how those marks can tell us so much. It reminds me that the act of drawing is a conversation – between the artist, the subject, and the materials, all dancing together. This piece feels like a page from a sketchbook, sharing those intimate moments with us. Isn't it amazing how one artist can speak to another, even across time, through these kinds of marks?