Castilla y León 2006

This is Rein Dool’s "Castilla y León," an ink drawing made on paper, and it just sings with the kind of quick, confident mark-making that comes from really looking. It's all about process, about capturing a sense of place with the fewest possible lines. The texture of the paper is lovely, you can almost feel the rough fibers. Dool doesn't try to hide the physicality of the ink, letting it pool and bleed in places, especially in the rock formation. It’s interesting how those dark, almost vertical strokes define the light on the rocks, suggesting a sense of weight and volume in contrast to the lightness of the rest of the scene. This reminds me of Cy Twombly’s landscapes, not in style exactly, but in that feeling of sketching as a way of thinking, as an open-ended conversation with the world. There’s no right or wrong, just a dance between hand, eye, and place.