Studies 1919

This is Reijer Stolk’s sketchbook, filled with studies in pencil. It's like a visual diary where he’s working through ideas and images. You can almost feel him deciding what to keep and what to discard. I wonder what he was thinking when he put pencil to paper to create the composition in the lower left. The way the lines come together is almost like a stage set. It feels as though something is about to happen, yet nothing quite does. The lines are thin and kind of tentative, but they create a sense of depth. They show a scene, a person, a situation in the artist's life, but they also capture a feeling. It’s a way of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world, all mashed together. These sketches are like echoes of other drawings and paintings, a reminder that artists are always in conversation with each other, across time. They create a space where there isn't a fixed reading, but a range of possibilities.