Schets voor een portret van mevrouw De Carnière-Wouters, echtgenote van de kunstenaar 1892 - 1916

Rik Wouters made this sketch of his wife, with watercolor, at an unknown time. The way Wouters lays down these marks, so casually, is like he’s thinking out loud on the page. I love the juicy, loose quality of the washes, especially that stroke of purple that grounds the whole composition. It’s like the color itself is alive, seeping into the paper, finding its own edges. You can almost feel the wetness of the brush, the quick flicks of the wrist. There is a tension between the marks that describe the figure and the more abstract washes of color that suggest a background. It reminds me of Matisse, who also had this incredible ability to make the most minimal gestures feel so full of life. It’s like they’re both saying, "Art is a process, not a product," and that’s something I think about a lot in my own work.