Showing posts with label painter's odyssey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painter's odyssey. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

jan cox - a painter's odyssee

saw the documentary jan cox - a painter's odyssey yesterday, on belgian tv.

[i forgot to mention: it was made by bert beyens and pierre de clercq (bert was kind enough to mail me an interested & interesting reaction, here you can see a short work on youtube kamera kussen with artists danny devos and anne-mie van kerckhoven) - postscript june 08]

interesting and inspiring to see, but non-findable on the web, so i add a fragment from belgian news tv below (in dutch, sorry):


clearly to me, jan cox was an artist looking for visual depth, spiritual depth. it always warms me to encounter such artists. he was also manic-depressive. this combination of artistic soulful talent with a serious mental illness is unfortunately seen in many of my favourite artists. another such artist who also took his own life is mark rothko.

in one fragment of jan cox - a painter's odyssey his wife yvonne van ginneken says: `he was suffering also from the fact that the people who could afford his paintings, didn't take the time to really look at them. whereas his work needs time. it grows on you.'

another quote (freely on my part): `suffering from depression, he yet did not want his work to be negative. he wanted to bring also hopeful perspective'

jan cox, blood rain
jan cox, blood rain

don't miss the current exhibition of his work in the royal museum of fine arts in antwerp (15 march-15 june 2008)