Staande vrouw, op de rug gezien 1915

Reijer Stolk made this woodcut, Staande Vrouw, op de rug gezien, sometime before his death in 1945. Look at the way the artist uses really graphic, bold black and white marks, it's almost like he's carving the figure out of the darkness. The texture in this piece is amazing, you can almost feel the grain of the wood. The artist uses a contrast of textures, like the floorboards cut with a simple line, versus the really complex textures of the background. Even though it’s just black and white, the way the artist varies the marks makes it feel so rich and alive. I love the way the artist has treated the pattern of the wall, creating this field of tiny marks to suggest a kind of shimmering surface behind the figure, almost like a dream space. It makes me think of other printmakers, like Edvard Munch, who also used the starkness of black and white to convey really intense emotions. But Stolk has his own voice, a kind of quiet intimacy. The whole thing is so open to interpretation, which is what makes art so exciting, right?