Hoofd van een vrouw, mogelijk An Overtoom 1891 - 1941

Leo Gestel made this drawing, possibly a portrait of An Overtoom, with graphite on paper. What was Gestel thinking as he worked? I imagine he was going for a kind of cubist sensibility, layering images on top of one another to convey the full dimensionality of his subject. There are several different heads in the image, each with a unique expression. One stares knowingly at the viewer, while another reclines in repose. Then there's the bunch of flowers held in front of the subject. You get the feeling that Gestel worked intuitively, letting the drawing emerge from the act of mark-making. He repeats a shape or a gesture across the surface. Gestel's drawing reminds us that artists don't work in a vacuum. They are always in dialogue with the art of the past. Painting is an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.