L i g h t
I have always liked to observe. As a child I discovered how exciting this could be. I used to look out from my room over the Frisian countryside and watch the clouds swell, only to dissolve a moment later.
I could hardly take my eyes off these images, because they would change so rapidly. Some of them had nothing to tell me, others told me so much through a sudden glimpse which would give rise to certain associations. All of a sudden these images would mean something to me. They would be reflected as shadows on the ground, which would take away the colour of the land, only to give it back a moment later - as if new. Images, colours and shapes would constantly change on the fields, visible one moment and then invisible.
In later years I began to travel, a.o. to the Himalaya. You may be walking at an altitude where only the mountain-tops seem to belong to you, because the earth down below no longer exists. You know it is there, but how far below is only a guess.
In the mountains, walking above the clouds, you see holes with the sunbeams coming through - an opening is created which reveals part of the secrets below.
I create now what fascinated me then. Landscapes, light and shadow are the basis of the subjects in my work.
S h a p e
I try to project these landscapes in my work by painting certain ‘forms’, which have nothing to do with the landscape itself.
These forms can be anything - mundane like a empty chocolate box or a traffic sign, but also products of good taste, like a design chair.
If the final ‘image’ in my painting is more convincing than the ‘real object’, then the association has become stronger than the form itself. That is my aim.
M a t e r i a l
The subjects of my paintings have the same origin as in my objects.
With my brushstrokes I use the paint to express images, such as those created by wind, water, sun on stone, clay and sand surfaces.
I work in the same way with metal. Copper and silver (once heated and soft as paint) can be moulded into patterns - in the way the wind blows or water flows.