Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1925 - 1927

This letter to Philip Zilcken by Lya Berger is like a delicate watercolor done with ink. Look at the way the text cascades down the page, almost like a gentle rain. I'm drawn to the materiality here. The slight bleed of the ink into the paper tells a story of time and place – the absorption of the ink shows the age of the paper. It's like the ink is slowly becoming one with the fibers, blurring the line between message and medium. And then there’s the postal stamp, a burst of circular energy, grounding the gestures of the writing into a kind of historical reality. The letter’s faded blue hue is a nod to other letter writings and artistic traditions from earlier periods. In fact, for me this letter embodies a tradition that goes back to people like Hilma af Klint, who created visionary watercolors as a way of communicating beyond the visual realm. I wonder what secrets lie in this little piece of paper.