Deur en decoratieve patronen c. 1916 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this page of sketches, *Deur en decoratieve patronen*, with graphite, hatching out triangles, spirals, grids. I can imagine him hunched over his notebook, trying out variations, seeing what resonates. These simple geometric forms are really ancient, echoing across cultures. I feel him searching for a personal take, riffing on these motifs, like a musician with a familiar tune. The push and pull of order and chaos, the tension between control and intuition… it's all there in the pressure of the pencil. He’s in conversation with others, for sure, maybe some Islamic art, maybe some modernist grids. It reminds me of Hilma af Klint’s notebooks, too. All of us artists are continually reaching back, picking up threads from the past, and weaving them into something new. He is attempting to use patterns to communicate. It's clear that for him, this is all an ongoing experiment, with no one fixed answer.