Brief aan Héloïse Bernard-Bodin 1878 - 1941

This letter to Héloïse Bernard-Bodin was made in Cairo in March or April of 1894 by Emile Bernard. Look at the way the ink almost fades into the lined paper, like a ghost of an idea barely committed to the page. For me, that speaks to how artmaking is a process of continual becoming. The physical qualities of the ink, how it pools in certain areas and thins out in others, really draw me in. There’s a vulnerability in the way the letters are formed, as if the thoughts are spilling out faster than the hand can keep up. I'm fascinated by the crossing out at the top of the page. It's like a painter layering and editing their composition. It is a raw and unfiltered expression of thought. I'm reminded of Cy Twombly's scrawled paintings, where writing becomes a form of drawing, blurring the lines between language and image. Art embraces these kinds of ambiguities; it's not about fixed meanings, but about opening up spaces for interpretation and dialogue.