Studie c. 1916 - 1945

This is a study on paper, made by Reijer Stolk, but when? Who knows? I can imagine him hunched over a table in his studio, a simple pencil in hand, mapping out an idea. The paper is creased and worn and full of erased lines. It is a palimpsest of thoughts. Look at how he has sketched out the composition within a grid. The square in the top left corner with its notes of red, blue and white seems to hint at his colour ideas. What might have been going through Stolk’s mind as he worked? Does the swirling circle represent a spiritual or psychological concept? And what to make of the mysterious abbreviation ‘Vac’? It reminds me of artists like Agnes Martin and Sol LeWitt, who explored repetition and geometric abstraction. What’s cool is that artists are always riffing off each other, influencing each other across generations.