Eiland van de vogelrock 1964

Dirkje Kuik made this etching, "Eiland van de vogelrock," with ink on paper. The tonal range is narrow here, like a cloudy day, but within that constraint, Kuik coaxes out these amazing craggy forms. I love the way she's built up the textures, scratching and layering the ink to create these almost gothic-looking rock formations. Look at the central mass—it’s a tangle of lines, a real density of marks that somehow coalesce into the shape of a gnarled, maybe even petrified tree. The island rises from the sea like a primordial beast; it reminds me of some old fairytale illustration. Kuik, like Goya, invites us into a world of dark imagination through etching. Both artists embrace the weird and haunting possibilities of the medium. There's a conversation happening across time here, about the power of art to conjure strange new worlds.