Ruiter in de regen before 2009

Aat Verhoog made this piece, *Ruiter in de regen*, meaning "Rider in the Rain," with printmaking ink on paper. Look closely at the colours. Verhoog uses this acidic yellow, this kind of pea soup colour, as the ground. The horse and rider are rendered in shades of brown, and the rain is made with quick slanting lines. The ground is mottled and textured, you can almost see the individual marks, which gives the whole piece a sense of movement and energy. In the mid-ground to the right of the rider there's a figure lying on the ground with a red and white umbrella. The rider seems oblivious, maybe riding away from the chaos or maybe simply trying to move on, despite it. It reminds me a bit of Philip Guston, in the way Verhoog embraces a kind of awkwardness and tells a story without telling us what the story is. It’s a process of storytelling. What is it? That's up to you, maybe it's up to all of us, and maybe it never has one answer.