Duinlandschap Possibly 2008 - 2019

Dirck Nab made this drawing, ‘Duinlandschap’, with pencil, as a way to engage with the Dutch landscape. It's like he's feeling his way through the dunes, each mark a record of his looking. The texture here is everything. The way Nab uses the pencil is so physical. You can almost feel the scratch of the graphite on the paper, the pressure he applied to get those dark, intense patches versus the light, airy strokes that suggest the movement of the grasses in the wind. Look at the bottom right-hand corner of the piece. See how the marks become more sparse? It feels like the land is dissolving into the paper, like a memory fading away. Thinking about other artists, Nab’s drawing reminds me of the landscapes of someone like Hercules Segers – that same sense of a personal and visionary journey into the landscape. For Nab, like Segers, it’s less about a literal transcription and more about finding a visual language for an experience. Ultimately, it's a reminder that art is about asking questions, not providing answers.