Boomstudie 1904

This is a pencil drawing called Boomstudie, or Tree Study, by Coba Steenhoff. The thing that gets me about a drawing like this is the sheer vulnerability of the process. You’re working with next to nothing, just some graphite on paper, making marks that have to stand for something much bigger, like an entire tree. The line is so exposed, but it’s also alive. It’s a record of looking, hesitating, and finding a way. Look at the bottom of the trunk, how it seems to emerge from the ground with these tentative, looping lines. The way Steenhoff captures the weight and groundedness of the tree with just a few strokes is kind of amazing, like the ghost of a tree. It reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin's understated touch, that sense of quiet contemplation and the infinite possibilities contained within simplicity. Art isn’t about answers, it’s about the questions we ask and the paths we imagine.