REM 1991

Robert Keyser made this drawing, named REM, using black ink to create gestural marks. Looking at this, I imagine Keyser in his studio, moving fast, making marks with assurance, then scratching them out, and making them again. The energy of the hand is palpable, isn't it? There's such a raw, immediate quality to the strokes. Some are thick, deliberate, grounding the composition. Others are more tentative. The frenetic mark-making reminds me of Cy Twombly’s work. I wonder what Keyser was thinking about? It’s like he was trying to work something out, a process of inquiry captured in ink on paper. It is almost like he was trying to capture a fleeting dream. As a painter myself, I think it’s a kind of conversation. Artists speaking to each other across time and space, inspiring one another. Each mark a thought, a feeling, an attempt to grasp something just beyond our reach.