Twee bomen aan de kust 1927

Jo Bezaan made this etching of two trees on the coast sometime in the early 20th century. It's all about line, isn't it? The way she patiently built up these textures with such simple marks. I'm really drawn to the area at the top of the trees, the way the lines of the sky are etched. It’s like a cloud, but also, it reads as pure texture, which gives the trees this kind of halo effect. You can almost feel the scratch of the needle on the plate. There’s such a vulnerability to the graphic language of etching, it's a slow burn of a medium. Bezaan reminds me of Agnes Martin actually, although Martin came later. Both are artists who use repetition and simplicity to create something that is both calming and subtly unsettling. Art's a conversation, right? It keeps going. Sometimes you have to just let it be what it is, ambiguous, and alive.