Prentbriefkaart aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1914

This postcard to Philip Zilcken is a real palimpsest of mark making. The pale card is covered with handwriting in faded brown ink, written at different angles and in different sizes, suggesting a real urgency, a desire to fill the surface with words. Look closely and you can see how the postal stamps and circular postmarks overlap, adding another layer of texture and history. There's a real beauty in the way the ink has faded and bled into the paper, creating a soft, almost ethereal quality, but at the bottom, someone has used a pen to go over the letters. The way the handwriting varies gives the impression of a conversation happening over time, a dialogue between sender and receiver. The layered quality of this little artwork reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scrawled paintings, where writing becomes a form of drawing, blurring the lines between language and image, and ultimately suggesting that art is always in conversation with itself, building on what came before.