Denkend aan het voortbestaan 1978

Harrie Gerritz made this drawing, 'Denkend aan het voortbestaan'– or 'Thinking about survival'– on paper. What kind of survival is he thinking about? There's two cows. A cave painting hovers above barbed wire, and beneath it a black and white cow with a rope around its neck, tethered to a pink flower. It feels like Gerritz is making a point about time, and about history, and about nature and culture. You know, thinking about what persists, what stays put and what evolves? Making any work of art is such a philosophical and physical process, and I feel like Gerritz is asking himself the same questions here as I do in my studio; where do ideas come from, and what do we do with them once we've got them? It's a kind of conversation that’s been going on since those first paintings were daubed on cave walls, and will continue every time someone picks up a brush.