Hoofden 1939 - 1941

Curator: Right, let's dive in. We're looking at "Hoofden," or "Heads," by Leo Gestel, made with ink on paper between 1939 and 1941. What’s your gut reaction? Editor: My gut? Overwhelmed. It’s like a tangled knot of faces, or maybe a mountain range made of…well, heads. It feels frantic, doesn’t it? And all that repetitive line work. It almost feels…laborious. Curator: "Laborious" is interesting. Considering the context, the years leading up to and including the early years of World War II, that repetition could reflect the monotonous anxiety of the time. Editor: True. It makes me think about the material scarcity of that period, too. Why ink? Was it a readily available resource when others were not? Gestel uses this very accessible material, almost as an everyday action. What statements could that inform? Curator: Perhaps. Though, with his background in modernism and his experimentation across cubism, luminism, and expressionism, he's probably chasing something beyond just the accessible. Look how the lines vibrate. It creates this churning sense of unease and psychic disturbance, right? I see anxiety incarnate. Editor: But isn’t there a tension between the expressive potential of ink and its material limitations? Like, ink drawings exist within very tight tolerances: The tooth of the paper, the fineness of the nib… This is a whole accumulation of production decisions! It is also just drawing at its basic material: Ink on paper Curator: Definitely, there's that push-and-pull, between the ethereal and the grounded. Ink’s immediacy lends itself so well to the chaotic energy. It's both controlled and utterly uncontrollable. As it spreads into itself. Beautiful stuff. Editor: It’s definitely potent. Seeing how materials shape and enable ideas gives this intense line work such power. It's almost exhausting. I really feel that. Curator: I’m walking away with new connections between medium, history and inner turmoil after that conversation. Editor: I’m thinking Gestel used everyday means to craft something that hits so hard, and how his choice elevates those quotidian tools into something…confronting.