Decoratieve patronen en een schildpad c. 1916 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this drawing called ‘Decorative Patterns and a Turtle’, with what looks like a graphite pencil, at some point in his short life. You know, looking at this sketch, you can really see how the making becomes the point. The tentative, almost searching lines – they suggest Stolk was really thinking through his process. He was letting the image emerge, bit by bit. The turtle, especially, it’s so simply rendered, just these clean, geometric shapes. But somehow, it feels complete, a turtle reduced to its purest form. It reminds me a little bit of some of the sketches of Hilma af Klint, that same feeling of trying to get at something essential, something beyond just surface appearance. Art’s funny like that. It’s not just about what’s there, but about the journey, the questions asked along the way.