Kop van een tijger after 1921

This is Henri Verstijnen’s ‘Kop van een tijger’, it’s a monochrome print made with an intricate crosshatching technique. I like to imagine the process of making this work, and the way a picture slowly comes into being. It's like the artist is feeling around, feeling their way through the form. Verstijnen has created a scene in layers, with the big cat emerging from a backdrop of grass and bamboo. The whole picture is built up with these short, tiny strokes. It's pretty clear he’s thinking about the texture of fur, the sheen of the eye, the sharpness of the teeth. You sense a real connection between the artist and the subject, the way he is showing us the world through his eyes, and through the tiger's. Artists are always in conversation with one another across time, aren't they? Each artist sees the world through their own experience and embodies that into their work, so that we might understand it too.