Schetsboek met 12 bladen 1923 - 1924

Antoon Derkinderen made this sketchbook of twelve pages at some unknown date, using humble materials - paper and a canvas cover. Imagine Derkinderen with this very object in hand, perhaps walking around, pausing to sketch something that caught his eye. What was he thinking about? What sort of artist was he? I imagine him outside on a grey day, quickly trying to capture the essence of a landscape. He was born in the late 1850s and died in 1925. What sort of world did he inhabit? There are all kinds of marks here, accidental ones, the odd stain, and I like that. A sketchbook is an intimate object, more about the process of thinking than the finished result. It's like glimpsing a painter's thought process. Artists today, like Derkinderen then, are in an ongoing conversation, exchanging ideas across time. Every mark is an expression of feeling, a conversation. Ambiguity is embraced, and the possibilities are endless.