finishing (not so old) work

grief and comfort (own work, 2012-2013, 34 x 50 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

sometimes, a work takes more stages before it is finished than i expected. this is mostly the case when i'm really experimenting with style. one inner debate which almost always takes place is simplicity vs. subtility/sophistication. and a very related question: how much imperfection is called for in this work?

so after starting this drawing in the beginning of 2012, i thought it finished at the end of last year. but i always study finished works for some time in my studio, before storing them, and its imperfections kept consistently nagging at me. i know that imperfection has its own quality and necessity, but when it keeps nagging me i usually feel that i have to improve on the work. i this case i chose to work more on detail, colour and expression. effectively this changed the entire drawing. the three pictures of details below should show you the expressivity of hands, faces and last but certainly not least: the expressivity of abstract elements.


hands in grief and comfort, detail i (click on the image for an enlargement)


faces in grief and comfort, detail ii (click on the image for an enlargement)


abstract elements in grief and comfort, detail iii (click on the image for an enlargement)

`normal' violence

when i found the victim under a street lamp, there was little i could do (own work, 2012, 24 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

the daily `normal' violence in our society is something i find hard to bear. i remember reading some story by a russian writer (turgenev? chekhov? i really don't recall) in which the main character is shocked by seeing someone receive a fist blow on the street. `in this modern day, in this 19th century, how could it be possible?´, the character thinks (or something similar).

reading this passage, i found it more shocking to see that actually we have become far more violent since then. today, i sometimes have to switch channels because some movie or tv series depicts horrible violence in a very graphic way. and what about the gaming industry?

but let alone the graphic visualisations, it seems we accept a disheartening level of violence in our day-to-day life. a fist blow on the street doesn't quite begin to cover it. is george steiner right, when he says our civilization is past its prime?

of human relations 3: drawings, drawings

[repeated: `as i said, i'm looking for new ways to visualize human relations, feelings, real-life struggle as well as uplifting moments. looking back on centuries of art, i find myself surprised that there is so little art which addresses this in a way that i find provoking, uplifting, inspiring.

this gives new motivation to continue my investigation. i feel sure enough of the emotive strength of the drawings which come up in this sense. and this translates into paintings as well. but enough words, the images themselves should be stronger.']


self-portrait as a mother worried about her children (own work, 2012, 30 x 36 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)


rejection (own work, 2012, 21 x 20 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

for the next image, also see the post on notre dame des anges:


seigneur notre retraite (in brown-red) (own work, 2011, 30 x 40 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

another theme that crops up ever more frequently: the people who do not fit well into our `wonderful' society. sure, they are the misfits, so to say. but who is the more crazy, he who accepts this crazy world, or he who does not fit in? if you have read my previous posts, you will know that i for one cannot simply answer that question. and my concern and sympathy are often with the misfits, and my anger is often directed at all the `respected' institutions which together comprise the status quo in our society.


woman out of kilter (own work, 2011, 20 x 28 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

i think emotive expressive power comes from the eyes, the face, the body language...and the materials and techniques used. this is what i study on, laboriously, and much unappreciatedly...but the time of appreciation will come, i suppose, once enough people see the works and enough time has passed for them to compare this avenue of art to other avenues. anyway, if you see any art touching on the same themes, please let me know, since it would be inspiring to me to know other artists with a similar outlook.


detail of woman out of kilter (own work, 2011, 20 x 28 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)



taking care of the psychiatric patient iii (own work, 2011, 21 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)



grief and comfort iii (own work, 2011, 21 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)



self-portrait in orange unrest (own work, 2011, 21 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)



man, lost in thoughts and orange background (own work, 2011, 30 x 36 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)


st. frances posing (own work, 2011, 30 x 35 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)


woman in white bra (own work, 2012, 30 x 40 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

landscape art, van gogh, gorges du tarn

let me say just a few words on landscape art. it has always fascinated me, perhaps firstly because both landscape and art have always fascinated me. but secondly, my views on landscape art were almost demolished when i first saw a van gogh painting (i believe i was around 11 yrs old).

before that, i was already surrounded in our home by paintings of kenyan landscape as a backdrop for kenyan wildlife, by peter pakara (pseudonym of an artist who i barely managed to find on internet as peter siegfried hahn). i admired these paintings greatly.


peter pakara (peter siegfried hahn) (unknown title and date, i believe this to be fair use of the image; the paintings in my parents' possession are all from the seventies)

as a child i already had visited the rijksmuseum a number of times through my primary school in amsterdam. but i don' recall seeing a van gogh there. in short, my idea of what painting was changed completely (i now believe) when i first saw works by van gogh.

unfortunately i don't remember which of his works i actually saw first, but i do recall the sensation of being in complete awe of something another human has made. not like the awe i had before for realistic works of art, but on a wholly new level, the awe that somebody had actually managed to paint something of what i always felt when being in nature.


vincent van gogh wheat field with cypresses (1889, click on the image for an enlargement)

ok, now for my own puny contribution to this post's imagery. three years ago i visited the gorgeous gorges du tarn:


st georges de levejac, gorges du tarn

and some time later i made this drainting:


gorges du tarn (own work, 21 x 30 cm, 2009, click on the image for an enlargement)

(to be continued)

some drawings (leading to self-reference)

this blog serves multiple purposes, which sometimes does not make for very consistent threads. the thread on nuclear energy has been served well enough, but a new thread (self-reference in art and other areas) will have to wait a little, since i also want to put up some fairly recent drawings...some of them containing a fair amount of self-reference...[and with real difficulty in getting the true colours of the real works approximately right, so i have to say the real works are really better (this is a plus too, of course, but readers of the blog often are not in a position to come view these drawings in the physical world)]


woman in park (own work, 2008-2011, click on the image for an enlargement)



self-portrait as artist who cannot even draw (own work, 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)



notre dame des anges texting (own work, 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)



notre dame des anges with glasses (own work, 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)



i think i met an angel (own work, 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)



self-portrait as artist with higher inspiration (own work, 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)

drawing, painting, drainting (st. frances 2)

portrait of st. frances drawing, mixed media on paper (own work 2010, 20 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement).

compared to the later work in the 20 november post, this one is more direct, less refined, but that is not to say less expressive. [disclaimer: drawings' colours and fine details are hard to photograph]

this drawing can also still be considered a drainting...but has more obvious drawing elements than (oh let me just repeat it, that is easier:) the later work below:


st. frances drawing, mixed media on paper (own work 2010, 20 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement).
$$$$$$$$

now to start a thread on the shady distinction between painting and drawing, first a wikipedia entry:

Drawing is a form of visual expression and is one of the major forms within the visual arts. There are a number of subcategories of drawing, including cartooning. Certain drawing methods or approaches, such as "doodling" and other informal kinds of drawing such as drawing on a foggy mirror caused by the steam from a shower, or the surrealist method of "entoptic graphomania", in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots, may or may not be considered as part of "drawing" as a "fine art." Likewise tracing, drawing on a thin piece of paper, sometimes designed for that purpose (tracing paper), around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through this paper, is also not considered fine art, although it may be part of the draughtsman's preparation.

The word 'drawing' is used as both a verb and a noun:

* Drawing (verb) is the act of making marks on a surface so as to create an image, form or shape.
* The produced image is also called a drawing (noun). A quick, unrefined drawing may be defined as a sketch.

Drawing is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper. Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[1] while modern coloured-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, however, drawing is distinct from painting despite that similar media are often employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support. Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly employed in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction.

this entry already shows that the disciplines of drawing and painting are not so easily separated.

some drawings of this year 2

some more drawings, without too much commentary (today, maybe i'll add something more later on).

[[repeated from a previous post: i'm always drawing...drawing to me is like poetry, and it is definitely a continuous source which pours over to painting. enough said, i'm just going to put up some pictures. (you can click on them for larger images.).

by the way, i invariably find drawings to be difficult to photograph well, my cameras nor my scanner are able to handle the contrasts and subtle whites and tonings that typically occur in a drawing. so although i put in quite some effort, the result is not as accurate as i would like it to be.]]


st. frances drawing, mixed media on paper (own work 2010, 20 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement).

[later comment 26 nov 2010:] this drawing is the latest in a series of st. francesca of rome (`st. frances drawing'). i worked on this drawing for 5 months, off and on. in fact, the word `drawing' becomes a bit questionable in many of my works on paper, because many of these works can also be seen as painting. perhaps the most accurate description would be `drainting' (since `pawing' has quite a different connotation already ;-)). let's google `drainting'! ...ok, having done so, as expected this observation and these puns have already been made by fellow artists...! but i will merit this discussion with another post. check out my posts for 26 november.



caught up in circles, mixed media on paper (own work 2010, 20 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement) [from the lyrics of cyndi lauper's `time after time'].

[26 november:] i'm working on putting my figures in some space. spatiality never was my strongest point, and starting out i didn't consider spatiality to be very important. a bit like paul klee perhaps. nowadays i'm puzzling on the question whether to devote more energy on achieving spatiality, or to continue to search for spiritual expression through other means, or...a combination, which is perhaps impossible. my problem with spatiality is that it already confers a touch of realism, and realism -its merits notwithstanding- has the decided disadvantage of taking the state of being as its foundation. all art derived from realism actually does this. so perhaps almost art does this, and it is the distance to / distortion of reality that determines whether something is classified as `realistic'. however, the above drainting will not be considered realistic by most viewers. still, it is based on realism nonetheless.

the question also is: why not content oneself with the state of being as an artistic foundation? or even as a spiritual foundation? to me there is also some inner world -perhaps childlike, primitive,...primordial, primogenial,...; perhaps not- which strives for expression. by using spatiality techniques (from the strange endeavour of creating 2D-works representing (3D-elements of) a 3D-world) one already puts a large restraint on the expression.

anyway, this is a hard question for me, and i will not be able to provide any real answer, i'm afraid. `caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new' applies here too. a very nice song...`if you're lost you may look and you will find me, time after time // if you fall i will catch you, i'll be waiting...time after time'


detail of the above drawing