Catalogus met werken van Bernard Essers 1903 - 1945

This list, or catalogus, of works by Bernard Essers, feels less like a dry inventory and more like a poem waiting to be written. I imagine Essers compiling it with his own typewriter, each entry a small act of remembering, a brief nod to the creative act. I wonder what it was like for Essers to look back at these titles. "Storm", "War Impression", "Landscape with three horses"... each one conjuring up an entire world. Consider the gesture of the artist naming a painting “Fantasy”. I think about the push and pull, between naming and remembering. I like the unpretentious nature of this list, the casualness with which it presents a life's work. Essers is not trying to impress us. These are the traces of a life lived through art, each piece a fragment of a larger, ongoing conversation. And in that conversation, we, the viewers, are invited to participate, bringing our own experiences and interpretations to the table. It’s a never-ending process of exchange and discovery, a kind of collaborative dance across time.