Niet met de honden spelen 1972

This is "Niet met de honden spelen" by Aat Verhoog. Look at the etched lines creating this landscape with two dogs on a hill. I can almost feel Verhoog's hand moving across the plate, digging into it, making marks, like the soft scratching of thought itself. I see this and I think about the decisions, the revisions, the pure labor of it all. What was he thinking when he layered these figures, both obscured and revealed? I imagine he was pondering how to represent the unrepresentable, the figures caught in the act of moving away. He places two figures in suits at the edge of the horizon line, they are moving towards the edge of some kind of portal. On the other side of the hill are two dogs, one little, one big. Are the figures moving to escape the dogs? I feel a sense of playful experimentation – a visual dialogue between representation and abstraction. All artists are like eavesdroppers in a never-ending conversation, and I can see how Verhoog contributes his own distinct voice. Ultimately, it’s not about having all the answers, but embracing the questions and ambiguities that make art so alive.