Een rechte lijn

Nynke Kuipers received a grant to develop her third graphic novel, Een rechte lijn, in which she explores how family patterns are passed down from generation to generation and whether drawing can help make them visible, and perhaps even break them. A line can be many things: a pencil stroke, a family line, a boundary between past and present. What if you’ve learned that being invisible is the safest option? That you keep yourself small and make reality more beautiful than it is? This pattern can also appear in drawing: by filling everything in, ordering it, and maintaining control. Can a drawing reveal what a family keeps hidden? And does space for change emerge once the invisible becomes visible? Een rechte lijn explores the line as a mark, as a family line, and as a possibility to become visible again.

Nynke is a visual artist and author of the graphic novels Weg (2019, Nijgh & Van Ditmar) and Stilte na de oorlog (2024, Van Oorschot). Her drawings often appear deceptively simple but touch on underlying themes such as loss, connection, and identity. With a playful, sometimes humorous visual language, she searches for that one sensitive, imperfect line that makes visible what is difficult to put into words. Connection is central in all her work: the connection with oneself, with others, and with nature, but also the fault lines that emerge when that connection is lost. It is precisely within this tension that she explores how drawing can reveal what would otherwise remain hidden.