Afrikaanse vrouw met een kind op de heup c. 1916 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this drawing of an African woman with a child on her hip with graphite on paper. The lines are tentative, searching, as if Stolk is feeling his way around the forms. It's about gesture, really, capturing the essence of a mother's embrace. I love the texture of the paper, with its slight tooth and the way it catches the graphite. It's so simple, just a few lines, but it conveys so much. The line that defines the child's back, for instance, is so delicate, almost hesitant, yet it perfectly captures the vulnerability of the infant. You can see the ghost of another attempt at the head, up in the left corner of the page. It makes you think about the layers of process involved in making a drawing like this, the erasures and corrections, the constant push and pull between intention and accident. Think about how Agnes Martin worked, always striving to find the balance in the space. It’s the same kind of feeling.