+Extra
Januari 2024
December 2022
I’ll be attending the Factor IJ Christmas Art Market on Friday, December 16th, and Saturday, December 17th!
Lots of mini artworks for sale at my stand, all priced < €100,-.
December 2022
From December 1st until December 17th my work is exhibited at Factor IJ, Pampuslaan 11, Amsterdam.
November 2022
‘PINK, when I turn out the light’ at its new, beautiful home!
November 2022
Together with my fellow students from ‘Het Fundament’ an 8-week training/business course for artists, I gave a final pitch and presentation. These weeks have been so rich: full of business advice, life lessons, and wonderful teachers and students! 💛
The (Dutch) text of my Pitch:
Stel je voor je doet je ogen dicht en je ziet ineens een wereld zonder weerstand, zonder goed of fout – geen polariteit; geen ‘gedoe’ -alles is gewoon precies zoals het moet zijn. Dat klinkt misschien nogal utopisch, maar dat is eigenlijk wel exact wat ik zie als ik -met mijn ogen dicht- naar energieën en de energie van mensen kijk.
In 2014 startte ik met een 5 jarige opleiding energetisch waarnemen en dat heeft voor mij alles op z’n kop gezet – zeker privé, maar het heeft ook een enorme impact gehad op de kunst die ik maak.
Voorheen was ik vooral aan het ventileren – want eerlijk is eerlijk, met mijn ogen open ben ik alles behalve zen en kan ik me vreselijk opwinden over alle misstanden en onrecht in de wereld. Maar daar kwam dus ineens een heel ander perspectief bij. En dat probeer ik met mijn kunst samen te brengen. De pijn, frustratie, verbazing van alledag en de heelheid en schoonheid die daar ook nog gewoon doorheen zit.
En die gelaagdheid en verbinding komt niet alleen qua thematiek terug in mijn werk, maar ook letterlijk… doordat ik vaak over de verf heen met wol en garen borduur en draadjes span. Zo wordt de boel als ware ‘aan elkaar geregen en wordt er extra diepte toegevoegd- een extra dimensie.
Het leuke is dat ik vaak van anderen terugkrijg dat ze niet uitgekeken raken op mijn werk – dat het verwondert, en ook een beetje kan schuren, maar ook de rauwe randjes juist wat zachter kan maken en zo zelfs helend kan zijn. Dat is natuurlijk helemaal fantastisch
Nou, dat alleen al – dat helende- lijkt me een goeie reden om mijn kunst onder de aandacht van zoveel mogelijk mensen te brengen.. Dus weet je nog een galerie, expositie of website waar mijn werk goed zou passen, neem dan alsjeblieft contact met me op!
Oktober 2022
“Moving’ images of my artwork, so you can see the layers, threads, shine, and depth:
Oktober 2022
It’s been a while making a commissioned artwork -and it’s almost always very nerve-wracking- but I think this birthday present really fits its new home perfectly. 💛
May 2022
Participating in Open Atelierroute IJburg was a blast & a huge success! Lots of really nice people came by, there were beautiful art conversations, and drinks, and I sold 2 120×120 paintings and 5 minis. 🙏
April 2022
3 new artworks, finished just in time for Open Atelierroute IJburg 21st & 22nd of May:
March 2022
Save the date! I’ll be having an ‘Open Art House’ during Atellierroute IJburg 2022, May 21st and 22nd. For a free map with the locations of all participants please visit the starting point of the route @Factorij, Pampuslaan 11, 1087 HP Amsterdam.
May 2021
“The Dance between the Angel and the Serpent” got its final embroidery.
November 2020
Proud that my Dutch poem ‘Self made isle’ is one of the winners of the ‘Bridge Text Contest’ and will be engraved in a new bridge that will be build on the Amsterdam Isle IJburg where I live.
(Lousy) English translation:
Self-made isle
*
Where no one has roots
But feet in the sand
And the children grow faster
then the trees can keep up with
*
Where the sun rises from the water
And hides at night behind the park
Where you can ripple, splash or sparkle
‘The city’ still on the other side
Dec 2019
‘My Privilege’ is made for the 2020 “You can’t paint that’ art competition by ‘Smash the Narrative’. The main subjects of the competition are censorship and taboo.
Being a person living in The Netherlands gives me a lot of freedom as an artist and as a person in general. I can’t think of anything that is of real danger for me to talk about, write about, or turn into art. There is no such thing as being censored in The Netherlands by government or law, at least not in my experience. Not all thoughts will be received with undivided enthusiasm by everybody, but there are few taboos I can think of, in the absolute sense of the word.
Then why is it that I don’t dare to speak my mind freely? Why am I so desperately trying to hide -or cover up the unconventional thoughts or ‘darker spots’ that sometimes occupy my mind? Why can’t I just ‘be’?
On the one hand, I feel so privileged that I feel I have no right to have an opinion about topics such as racism, oppression, or the environment. On the other hand, I’m afraid of getting into conflict if I would. The awareness that not everybody has an equally open mind and respect for someone who has a different view of the world keeps me from being honest. The fear of not being excepted by my family, my friends, and society in general, when they would know everything that’s on my mind -the ‘real’ me- keeps me from being open.
Is it really more important for me to be excepted than to be real and free? And is it really necessary for me to censor myself in order to keep connected? What would happen if I didn’t? Am I then losing my ‘privilege’, or is it all in my head?
‘My Privilege’ shows the dept of thoughts and opinions as well as their ability to be fluid and open to change. Here there is no such thing as ‘just black and white’, but colors adding and mixing. Eyes and ears are somewhat clouded by all the different ‘thoughts’ and ‘opinions’ and even though the colors are vibrant and alive and the thoughts and opinions can run freely over the painting, the mouth is not able to speak, being sewed together by white thread.
(I’m considering adding a sealed letter with all my unspoken thoughts and opinions, some of them dark and some of them light, some embarrassing, others simple, with the painting. Buying the painting would mean getting access to what I’ve been hiding from family, friends, and society. I started writing, but I’m still not sure if I will be brave enough to do so.)
‘My Privilege’ is the last part of an art trilogy “Faces” and addresses, together with ‘She too’ and ‘Without Green’, questions about identity, guilt, redemption, and punishment. How can we ‘be’ and rest in our totality without condemning ourselves? And how can we belong and be excepted without losing who we truly are?
December 2019
Enjoying the holiday vibes with self-made Christmas adornments. Using (spray)paint and glitter, the plain deep purple ornaments become unique little pieces of art covered in gold, silver, pink yellow, and orange.
Oktober 2019
Expo @ café restaurant Blooker! In the upcoming months, my work is for display at Blooker located at Amstelplein Amsterdam.
31 Maart 2019
Mijn inzending voor de ‘Lang leve Rembrandt’ wedstrijd van Het Rijksmuseum is ingezonden. Het was de laatste dag dat inzenden mogelijk was en ik was om 15.00 de 8728e inzending. Voldoende competitie dus. 🙂
Mijn werk ‘zelfportret Zonder groen’ (Without green) is geïnspireerd op Rembrandts ‘Zelfportret op jeugdige leeftijd’ en zijn gebruik van licht, schaduw, reliëf en vernieuwende technieken.
Ik onderzoek of ik met enkel licht toch een ‘schaduw’ kan creëren en of ik mezelf net als Rembrandt kan vangen zonder mijn meest opvallende uiterlijke kenmerk te benadrukken: mijn ogen.
Wat blijft er nog van me over zonder de blik en het groen van mijn ogen? En meer filosofisch: Wat is een kunstenaar überhaupt zonder ogen? En wie ben ik zonder contrast, overbelicht, zonder mijn schaduw?
Goud-, zilver- en parelmoerverf vangen het licht. Het garen zorgt voor een extra dimensie als ware het een negatieve schaduw en doet denken aan de fijne lijnen van etsen.
Meestal volgt het garen de verf, af en toe expres niet en wijst het de verf waar deze ook nog had kunnen gaan.
Mierzoete kleuren ontstaan uit het felle wit. Mijn geliefde groen ontbreekt en het werk schreeuwt om veel meer contrast. Hetgeen waarin ik doorgaans juist het evenwicht in mijn werk vind. Maar ik houd me in en laat het zo.
Het zelfportret past zich gedurende de dag aan bij iedere verandering van lichtinval. En pas wanneer het donker begint te worden lijkt het op mij.
Helaas laat ook dit werk zich weer lastig fotograferen door het gebruik van verf dat het licht weerkaatst en de talloze hele dunne draadjes.
Meer close up ziet het er zo uit:
November 2018
Proud to inform you that my latest work ‘www’ won the audience prize in the ‘Alter Nation’ competition of thought-provoking art by Smash the Narrative.
‘www” was chosen as one of the 21 finalists in this contest about ‘national identity in current times and was displayed from October until November in the exhibition in Go Gallery Amsterdam.
For more information about contributing artists and contesting artworks, please visit: Smash the Narrative.
November 2018
My latest artwork is called ‘She too’. Although the title is -of course- inspired by the recent #metoo movement, the work itself should be viewed in a much broader context. The work is also inspired by the picture I saw on NOS news showing so-called Dutch ‘moffenmeiden’ (German lovers) and the complexity of the several wars that went on for decades in Rwanda.
The ‘moffenmeiden’ were Dutch girls who were severely punished (without an official trial) after World War II for their relationships/affairs with German soldiers during the war. The girls’ heads were shaven and they were badly physically and often sexually abused as punishment for their ‘love’. I was taken by the overwhelming touching and powerful mixture of guilt, grief, and willpower as shown by the girls in the picture.
The situation in Rwanda is complex because Hutus and Tutsis were both at one point in history the aggressor. After the genocide of 1992 Hutus and Tutsis are forced to live together side by side, since it is not possible to convict all the perpetrators because they make up more than half of the population. And this is just one example of the complexity of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ regarding opposite sites in conflicts in general all around the world.
Both stories, together with the developments around #metoo, show that there is a really thin line between being a victim and being an aggressor and that maybe we all have parts of both in ourselves. Between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ -for me- lies an endless field of possible ratios.
This artwork explores what it looks like when contradicting experiences and opinions are all ‘true’. Can strength, grief, serenity, aggression, guilt, suffering, submission, atonement, love, etc. all take place at the same time within one single person? (And if so, should we change the way we look at others and ourselves and how we praise and condemn others and ourselves?)
Are guilt and innocence reconcilable?
Summer 2018
‘Wonderland’, ‘Exploding Rainbow, Yellow’ and ‘Happy tears dried in the night’, are for show and for sale at STIJLDEPARTMENT, Pampuslaan 23-25 in Amsterdam. A lovely excuse to visit this beautiful shop (and perhaps grab a delicious coffee or buy a pretty dress while you’re there?)
June 2018
About ‘www’ :
This work is not finished, and probably never will be. It’s like culture(s): an ongoing process. Layer on layer. “www” shows how cultures erupted from the earth. Their roots gained color depending on the landscape. Our cultures can only exist in the presence of other cultures. If there was only one culture, there would not be any. Although they differ from each other, they all consist of the same building blocks.
This work shows the layers of culture(s). A culture rooted in the soil of its homeland and culture as layers above that soil: The way we speak, our internal rhythm given and dictated by the landscape we live in, and the social agreements and conventions we made.
Cultures are never static, always fluid. As our landscape can change over many years, so do our cultures. Not only by the change in landscape, but also by the view at, and sometimes touch of, other cultures.
There are no borders for cultures. With continuous exponential growing access to other cultures by traveling and the internet, we accelerate that process of change. Our roots in the soil are still changing slowly, but ‘above’ we are influenced, touched, and inspired. It’s like we are one big organism consisting of cells that interact and exchange.
There are people that fear these (rapid) changes… I like to look at it from a more optimistic point of view. That the exchange and mixing of our ‘cultural colors’ will create something larger than just the sum of those separate colors added up.
In time there will derive something out of this colorful web, that will exceed and transcend those colors. Hence the gold and silver lines.
The canvas is 50×50 cm. If displayed, it must hang horizontally, so the public can also look at the bottom of the work. I chose thread because of its fragile nature. A stool is part of the artwork, which enables people to look at the work from different angles regardless of their height.
I used (besides the silver and gold) 41 different colors which I got from friends, who almost all got them from their moms and didn’t use them themselves. The nails and threads remind me of my parents. It’s like reconnecting with my childhood home. Being impatient and someone who likes to throw with paint, this ongoing process with fragile threads is quite a challenge for me. The slow pass in which this artwork is created feels more like art, than is shown by the canvas.
‘www’ – the making of:
‘www’ – in Go Gallery Amsterdam:
