Ontwerp voor een tapijt met Oosters patroon 1920 - 1930

Dirk Verstraten made this carpet design on graph paper with colored pencil, but when, exactly? It feels timeless, doesn’t it? I wonder about the experience of making this, slowly filling in each square of the grid. Did Verstraten feel like they were building something monumental, or something very intimate? I see those blue and orange hues, pixelated into geometric forms, each one a deliberate decision. Maybe Verstraten found that this labor was a meditation. You know, Agnes Martin used grids in a similar way. Repetition and subtle variation can open up a space for the artist to get lost in, and for the viewer to enter into, slowly. Verstraten is having a conversation with craft traditions here, but he's also anticipating the digital age. In some ways this reminds me of the work of contemporary artists like Polly Apfelbaum or even Sol Lewitt. Artists are always finding new ways to think with what already exists, building something new out of old conversations.