Kop van een man 1906 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this drawing, Kop van een man, with pencil, and what I like about it is how provisional it feels. Stolk's drawing is all about process: you can see him thinking and feeling his way into the image. Look at the hatching around the nose. It’s like he's building up the form with these tiny, repetitive strokes, almost like he’s knitting the face together. You can feel him searching for the right line, the right angle, and that searching is what gives the drawing its energy. It's not about capturing a likeness, but about the act of seeing and translating that into marks on paper. It reminds me of Giacometti's drawings, in that they both have this incredible sense of searching, of never quite arriving at a fixed image. Art is just an ongoing conversation, a constant questioning. And that’s the beauty of it.