Enkele dagen voor het 40- jarig regeerings jubileum van H.M. de koningin. Eereavond in het Gebouw voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen te 's Gravenhage Possibly 1938

This photograph captures Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands with other members of the royal family, taken anonymously in the Hague. I think about how a photograph works – it's this moment, right, but it's also a record of what was there. It's like a painting, where the artist layers and layers, adding and subtracting, building up this whole world on a flat surface. I'm sitting here wondering what the photographer thought about as they took it. I mean, did they feel pressure capturing royalty? The way Wilhelmina is reading from the papers gives her such a presence. You can really feel the seriousness of the event. It reminds me of other historical portraits, where the subject is not just seen, but also feels seen. It's like the artist is saying, "I see you, and I'm going to make sure everyone else does too." That’s what artists do for each other. The conversation goes on, and we build on each other's work. It’s like we're all just trying to figure out how to make sense of the world, one brushstroke or snapshot at a time.