Boom before 1959

Dirkje Kuik made this small watercolour and pen landscape, Boom, or Tree, with quick, exploratory marks. I imagine her outside, on the spot, trying to capture not so much the tree, but the feeling of the tree, the bigness of the landscape. The ink is dark, almost bruised in places, but it’s held in check by the pale washes of blue that bleed across the page. She's not trying to get it ‘right’. The lines of the tree trunk are repeated like the artist is trying to find the perfect line. It reminds me of those Cezanne watercolours, where the lines build up, layer upon layer, searching. I love the way Kuik embraced the ambiguity of painting; it’s about questioning, searching, and allowing for multiple meanings. It's a conversation across time, an ongoing exchange of ideas, each artist inspiring the next.