Boompartijen 1939 - 2009

Kees Stoop made this drawing, Boompartijen, with pen and ink, and chalk. It’s all about mark-making, the kind that invites you in to consider the whole process. Look at the texture – those tiny marks everywhere! It’s like he’s building the image bit by bit, with this intense, repetitive action. You can see this especially in the upper section, with the thicket of trees. What tools did he use? Was it a scratchy pen, or a dry brush? You can almost hear the scraping as you consider the marks on the page. It reminds me of the drawings of Guston, with that similar sense of building up form through accumulation. Both artists aren’t so worried about illusionism. Instead, they embrace ambiguity. There are so many ways of seeing and experiencing the world, after all.