Rilke: Duino Elegies 1996

This is a small watercolour and ink piece, a study of the poet Rilke’s “Duino Elegies” by Maria Bozoky. I love the way Bozoky dives right into it, like she’s sketching a fleeting thought. Look at the face – it’s there, but barely. It’s like she’s not trying to capture a likeness, but more the feeling, the vibe of the poetry. The ink lines dance around, finding the form, losing it, finding it again. And those washes of colour! They’re not filling in the lines, but kind of breathing life into them. The palette is pale, but it creates a sense of depth, and the dark ink is used to describe the forms and add definition. Notice the building – maybe a temple? – scrawled in the background. It’s like the architecture of the poem itself. All these layers, all these fragments. It reminds me a bit of Twombly, that same love of language and mark-making, that same sense of letting the process lead the way. It is like she's having a conversation with the poem.