Ontwerp voor een zilveren theeblad 1910

Mathieu Lauweriks made this design for a silver tea tray with pencil on paper, and it's the under-drawing that grabs me. You know, the ghost of the final form. The circle templates and precise geometric planning are all there, but it's the slippage around the edges that make the piece sing. I love the confident curve of the tray's outline, how it almost contains, but doesn't quite, the geometry within. It reminds me of how a potter centers the clay on the wheel, finding the form through repetition, a process of trial and error. Look at the area where the outer line deviates from the inner structure, this little wobble is where the life is, it's the human touch, the imperfection we crave. Lauweriks' design sits in conversation with the graphic explorations of Hilma af Klint, both artists mining the depths of geometric abstraction to articulate the intangible. Art's not about answers, it's about the questions we ask along the way.