Blank 1864 - 1941

Here's a blank page from a sketchbook, made by Niels Larsen Stevns, we don't know when. Isn’t it interesting how a blank page can be so full? The slight yellowing of the paper, those tiny spots – they tell a story of time passing, of being handled and stored. It's like a stage set for the imagination, waiting for the drama to begin. Look closely, and you’ll notice the texture of the paper, a subtle grain that feels almost like skin. It’s a physical thing, this page, and you can almost feel the artist’s hand hovering above it, considering what to put down. That spine, holding the pages together, is like the spine of a book – full of potential narratives. The blankness reminds me of Agnes Martin. I feel like it resonates with her quiet, meditative grids, but in reverse. Instead of finding peace in repetition, Stevns is finding peace in the possibility of the unknown. The beauty of art is that it is never really finished, is it?