Brief aan Mien Cambier van Nooten Possibly 1939

This letter to Mien Cambier van Nooten, made by Dick Ket, probably with ink on paper, is all about process. It’s like a thought caught mid-stream, each word a stroke, a hesitation, a leap. Look at how the writing loops and dives, how the letters crowd each other. You can almost feel Ket’s hand moving across the page, trying to keep up with his thoughts. The ink itself seems thin, transparent, like he’s barely touching the surface, letting the words emerge like ghosts. Notice the way some words are underlined, emphasized – it’s like a little performance, a conversation unfolding right before your eyes. The shapes of the words begin to lose meaning as they are repeated, like abstract art. Ket’s whole approach reminds me of Cy Twombly, that sense of language dissolving into pure gesture. Both artists treat the surface as a space for thinking, feeling, and just being present in the act of creation. For Ket, as for Twombly, art embraces ambiguity, welcoming multiple interpretations over any fixed meaning.