1993.
A
description of my most important ways of expression and of what I wanted to
express in them.
1. Landscapes.
I made them from 1955
till 1967. Freshness, the sparkling of light and water, the many shades of
colours in nature with every imaginable playing of light. All atmospheres and
moods that one can find in
nature with all the contrasts that go with it, this interested me.
2. The blue paintings. I made them from
3-'56 till the end of '67. I discovered and roamed around in strange inner
worlds. I think I expressed a great longing for my father who had been a great
inventor and a great man. He was killed by the germans in 1944. There is
mystery, longing, infinity, emptiness, a timeless atmosphere, a great silence in these inner landscapes.
One could think of Anton Webern's cosmic music of about 1905-1910 when one
looks at these paintings. I am sure people will later think of the first russian and united
states-missiles when they look at these paintings with forms shooting through
space. An american painter talked about laser beams. One thing is sure, nobody
has influenced me, all these forms were my own language which I found deep in
myself.
3.
Little
paintings with horizontal and vertical directions in its compositions.
I express poetic feelings here, enjoy colours, structures and letters.
1960-'61.
4.
Geometrical
musical dynamical series. 1963-1971. I want to take this up again but need a
lot more space. These are paintings with musical developements. In the space of
the picture-plain happens what happens in time in a piece of music. What is
distance here between forms is time in music. All forms have a dynamic relation
to each other, they take part in a movement, in countermovements, disturbances
of rhythmes, collisions and reformations of forms. These paintings are
different of anything of other painters like Malevitch and Kandinsky. I
express here my desire for strong dynamic, clear, sharp build-up of tensions by
means of movements of beams, rectangular forms, rhombs, blocks and lines.
Relaxiation and tension in these paintings I get by means of the white parts in
these paintings in contrast to the groups of colliding, sometimes, each other
overlapping and shooting away of forms. Energy, dynamic, sharply formulated
explosions end movements. One could compare these paintings with a build-up of
tensions in The Rite of Spring of StrawinskY. One could think of Charles Ives
and Edgar Varčze.
5.
Paintings with recktangles, beams and tachism. 1971 till 1977. What interested me here were the
attacks on fixed geometrical forms, so that in places a rich chaos results in
which new possibilities are possible. One could compare this with all dogma's
and fixed theories that have to change all the time to make room for new
developements. Real life is like that. This is a very private expressmon too.
6.
Abstract-Expressionism or Action-Painting. Since 1978 till now. This is my most direct and
liberating way of expressing my feelings. My acting is conducted by feeling,
instinct and reason. Errors, improvements, a nearly total destruction of
nearly everything you just did is possible.The struggle for stronger forms, for
richer colour, for a better composition leaves its marks in the final result.
One can express a dynamic feeling, drama but stillness as well. In all my
directions I have a great range of feelings I want to express, with great
contrasts and with many different possibilities. In abstract-expressionism I
can express much of what moves me in nature. Waterfalls, the sea bursting on
coasts, vulcano-eruptions, storms etc. inspire me. These happenings in nature
one can compare with what can happen in our lifes with the great contrasts of
happy and tragic moments, of sunshine and darkness. The skala of feelings one
can experience in life is enormous but the different ways' in which one can
express these feelings are tremendous too. I would like to show this to the
world.
7.
Recktangles
in combination with action-painting and tachism. 1978 till now. In these
paintings I express my desire for strong colour-planes, mostly more or less
monogrome, in combination with rich mixings of colour. Again attacks on fixed
forms, washes over other fields of colour, movements in contrast with static
colour blocks, mysterious shadow regions, power and tender poetry, of the
dramatic and the dreamlike stillness.
8.
Paintings
with horizontal colour-beams. A very harmonic peacefull mood I express here. It
is a situation of peace which one often needs in the turmoil of life. These
paintings which I call my meditative series, form one extreme, one pole in my
character and the action-painting forms the other end. I get inspiration from
these poles and everything that is possible in between. These extreme contrasts
are for me essential, they inspire me al1 the time. The most quiet, inward
turned part of myself I express in these paintings and I am quite sure that
many people will be moved by them as they are moved by a number of painting by
Rothko. 1978-now.
9.
Paintings
with dynamical geometric forms, tachism and action-painting. Again a
very personal language. From 1977 till now.
10. Paintings with dynamic signs. 1980
till now. Again a different way of expression with brushes directly on the
canvas or with east-indian ink on paper of which I made greater paintings recently.
People are reminded of Japanese or chinese signs when they see this work. It is
again dynamic and energy translated in simple signs.
11.
Paintings
with letters and figures. 1985 till now. Here too, it is energy, dynamic
movement,power, contrast of heavy forms and very fine ones, strong rhythmic,
order and chaos and overcoming of chaos that I want to express. Sometimes
e1egance. There is always a musical element. Again I don't know another painter
who would make paintings somewhere related to my paintings.
12.
Three
dimensional compositions in wood and metal. Since 1967 till now. Earlier I made them in colour, now
in white. Originally drawings of train-, motorcar- and plane-accidents
inspired me, with their same transitions of order into chaos and the other way
around. Regular forms become here a chaos of great and small fragments. In
these fragments there are new possibilities for new compositions. I a1ways compare
this with music. Ives is a good example with his two orchestras each playing
its own melody with as a result an organised chaos of sounds with bits of order
amidst a chaos or the fascinating fight of the two elements order or chaos for
supremacy.(Three places in New England). Again in these drawings of accidents
a dramatical intervening, a fatal moment in which everything changes in a
radical way, everything is affected violently. In a work of art one builds in
the chaos possibilities. for a new start, a new melody, rhythme or composition.
One starts making order in the chaos by forms regrouping in certain ways.
13. Photography.
a.
Portrets.
Nearly exclusive of my children in the years 1956-1970. I tried to get in these photo's the deepest feelings
of these children, the soul of the child with all its innocence, purity,
vulnerability, attachment, trust, tenderness ead humour. I worked a lot with sharp and unsharp to get
a better concentration on the most important. The dramatic of. light and dark
fascinated me and moved me. Again the tension between contrasts.
b.
Still-life.
Poetry, the colours and
atmospheres flowing over into each other. I did many still-lives
from 1973 till 1980. They often became unrecognisible. I often used them to get totally
abstract compositions.
c.
Landscape.
The same things interested me as in landscape-painting. Especially the workings
of light and water interests me. In towns and vlillages in southern countries I
am before all interested in the poetry of the colours and structures on old
doors, windows and shutters, on walls, in reflections, the light and dark, the
playing of lines, in letters and graffitty and the order and chaos in them.
Since 1984 I am mostly busy with the abstract translation of nature. The
magnificient playing of lines in movements of blades, trees and clouds
interests me. There is a strong connection with my abstract expressionistic
paintings.
d.
Movements
in nature.
e.
Pure
abstract photography. I have many ideas in this field but it is a very
expensďve business while so many photo are fall-out. When I earn more I 'll be
able to realise a lot more in this field.
14. Colour
Pencildrawings.
In
about 1994 I started to make colourpencil drawings with rectangles, squares,
beams, lines, groups of lines and dot-like accents as I had always done in
black and white drawings. In the last five years I introduced the circle in my drawings.
Furthermore I used the splash and spat possibility with the aquarel
colourpencils. With water you can bring more coherence in a wild part of a
drawing. I use letters and numbers as well to get strong accents. Movement and
dynamic stay as the most important things that I want to express, just as it is
always the case in music. A melodic line and the rhythms is in a drawing as
important as in music and a bow of tension that is maintained from the first
forms till the last are as important as in a piece of music or in a novel or in
architecture. I often listen to music while drawing and for example Beethoven
who always has a great driving force leading to a climax in his compositions is
very inspiring. The movements of my hand in drawing are often inspired by the
music where I am listening to at that moment. A gallery-owner once said to me
as a critical remark that I was a musical painter. I find this only favorable.
I cast greater and smaller forms in a space to create fields of tension in this
space here too, as in the black drawings. I let energetic movements come forth
from centers of power consisting of greater forms. Sometimes there are more
centers of force that take action against each other. What inspires me are boxing-matches,
ballet or dancing couples performing very expressive movements or show very
subtle gestures with is. All human feelings even the most delicate can be
expressed by dance as well as in drawings. I get inspiration from fancy skaters
and wrestlers, fighting hippopotamusses and crocodiles attacking gnoes crossing
a river, great whales or sharks jumping high above the sea, making in their
turnings fantastic water scenes in which firm forms and their colours stay only
partly visible. Especially scenes with dramatic movements during collisions or
fights of people or animals when they are shown in slow motion can be of
fascinating beaurty. Sam Peckinpah had in his films scenes with fights where
men fell on the ground enveloped with clouds of orange or gray dust that were
in slow motion of a great beauty. Such things I want to express with paint or pencil
in a totally abstract way. For me it is a way to translate the drama of life
and death, of chaos and order, of power and contra-power. I am of course not
unfeeling for the tragedies that occur with fights of animals, of people, or in
train , boat or plane accidents and with race car accidents and earthquakes.
That moves me just as the tremendous tragedies that took place in the first and
second world war and in so many other wars. These tragedies play an important
part in my emotional life. I can say that I will never be able to grasp it in
all its immensity. These tragic happenings are symbolic for what can take place
in our private lives, in our inner being and in our bodies through sicknesses,
accidents and death. These are things that I will always try to express, the
violence in nature and the sublime harmony one can find in it and that
translated in an abstract language.
I
sum up here one other time what I express in my work:
The
silence and the action, the dynamic, the power and the subtlety, rhythmes, the
timeless, elegace, poetry, musical developments, themes disturbing each-other,
movements, exploding and colliding of formgroups and the falling apart of them,
the power and vitality of colourfields and the special working of the colours
in them, the racy rich colourmixings, rich structures, chaos and order, the
concentrated power of black and white compositions but the drunken-making manifold of colours and
forms as well. In all these directions which I cultivate I can express a great
range of feelings in a great quantity of possibilities of expression.
I always wanted to enlarge my possibilities of
expression during the 37 years that I am painting and I discovered that the
finding of new ways of expression can be a never ending process. I am perfectly sure that many painters
will be interested in the new possibilities I can show and I know there is a
great public waiting for me once I can get some big exhibitions to show all
these possibilities in modern art. I hope to find directors of art museums who
see the force behind myl idea's, the originality and power of my work and the
depth of me feelings. For this I missed in everything I saw of the art of the last
30 years that I saw in the musea in Europe. I know many other people missed the
necessary spiritual content and depth of feeling in the art of the last 30 years that was visible for them in
the musea.
When I
say of a number of directions in my work that it is a totally new language that
I speak, one must not think I am conceited. What I say, I can prove. Let one
look in every book about modern art and compare my blue paintings, my
geomatrical musical dynamic series, my paintings with recktangles and the ones
with letters and figures, the paintings with signs and the ones with horizontal
beams and my drawings with what other painters did. After this
comparing they may judge.
But I must say this: Before God I feel humble. I want to be a perfect tool in his
hands and help to enrich his creation by helping him as a part of
his creation as so many others did in all ages.