I was interviewed by Nicole Millar for the newspaper tv channel Le Punt/Avui+ on March 8, 2015. The interview was totally improvised. It gives a good idea of my work. 

This painting started much bigger. I wanted to combine different themes that fascinate me: the human body and flowers (as in ‘Flower Man’). And I wanted to mix the different styles of painting.

Unfortunately this painting fell in two parts. The flowers next to the woman did not play an inevitable or mysterious enough role. And that is what counts. A painting should tell a story, maybe not a story that can be told with words, but it has to have a tight meaning, it has to feel right.

I was (and am) especially satisfied with the way the face and arms of the woman are painted. It is a way of painting that I have developed over the years. A painting is a painting and thus should here follow its own logic too. No photographic resemblance should be obtained.

But then those flowers… In the end I cut that part and extra out to find a new balance and to sober up the work.

Balance is a thing I am much concentrated on lately (that is also why I like the painting of Rembrandt: ‘Woman with ostrich feather fan’ so much. The balance between her face and hands is magic).

In ‘The Mirror’ I made the woman wear a bra, but no under pants. This gives the painting a sensual tension, also due to the fact that the lower part of her body is in the shade.                           

Things like these can keep me ‘from the street’ for weeks…

You find the painting under 'others' on the site.

I was in the Netherlands for work and went to see the Rembrandt show for the third time… You might say that I am a fan... This time I was able to see the paintings a lot better. In Amsterdam luckily they have hung them in a bigger space. There is room!

If you have plans to see the show, go at 9.00! Till 11.00 it is still possible to see the works without an Ice-hockey suit and kalashnikov!

I have been studying his works over the years. You discover so much more when you copy them. Here is one of my copies.

Between 2002 and 2005 I made a series of sketches with Esmeralda as the model. The sketches were small in size and executed in black and white. All through the years I have worked with many models. Esmeralda (amongst a couple of others, let’s not forget!) was a great inspiration. Almost all works are sold…  

I was in London once again, on invitation and for work. I had a week not to forget, it was more than great.

Apart from seeing the Rembrandt and the Turner show for the second time, I saw the Schiele show at the Courtauld, visited the Wallace collection and more, much more. If you have the time, go and see the Schiele show before it is to late!

And as one might say, in occasion of the Turner show, I saw the movie ‘Mr. Turner’. To my opinion it is a masterpiece. What a treat, what a start of the new year!

This year has been a year of changes. Changes for the good. I have started the auctions and till now they have been very succesful. In the new year there will be lots more.

New on the site are the ART HYSTERIA SKETCHES.

For the ones who love testing their knowledge of the arts, first guess and then see if you knew who is who. The answers you find under the question mark vignette on the left bottom of the image.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Rembrandt is one of my all time favorites and already for many, many years. In this show there are only works of his last period and not one of them is of a questionable quality. All are top works.

There are some from Washington (had seen them for the last time in 1990 and amongst them ‘portrait of the woman with the ostrich-feather fan’!) and one from Australia. To see them together is a feast.

Rembrandt depicts the most challenging of all, the human soul, in his paintings, transmitting it through his way of treating the subject.

The image shows a detail of the ‘portrait of Margaretha de Geer’. That painting is not included in the show, but is left in the permanent collection. When I am working on a portrait, it is one of the great inspirations to do better.

See the video of the National Gallery.

A funny note: I have met two Rembrandts not long ago!

William Turner (Tate Britain): the painting set loose. I confess to have found him sometimes to sugary, to sweet, bad on the teeth. Wrong! This man went on a very personal trip. He took up where Constable left it, even if they were contemporaries. He stepped over impressionism to a romantic own language (this is 'old fashioned': painting the ‘real’ painting in the studio from sketches made on the spot. But then they are thrown so far away from reality, that the painting becames ‘post impressionist’). The realistic image is transformed into dream or nightmare. For one reason or the other, I kept having ‘Verklärte Nacht’ (Arnold Schoenberg) in my head. We are at the end of the painting representing an image of the real world holding the hand of that real tight. And this was before Cézanne! Instead of Cézanne’s cool analytic approach, Turner went for a somewhat ‘Jungen Werther’ view, ‘Sturm und Drang’! In the end, the human figure vanishes. This must have made me think of ‘Verklärte Nacht’. Romanticism becomes ‘abstract’ (Oh, how I do not love that word).

Blog: John Constable in Victoria and Albert Museum.

In London I saw three amazing shows. There is no other word for than amazing for all three shows.

John Constable in the Victoria and Albert museum.

Turner in the Tate Britain.

Rembrandt in the National Gallery.

One blog will not be enough… Let’s start with Constable: the first impressionist painter. There were many sketches to be seen and it was such a good idea to put two versions of the Hay Wain next to each other. They could be seen from far and that gives a great perspective of the two different approaches. It is painting in a suggestive way, the brush stroke is shown, becomes a star on its own. 

And he must have had a black and white dog… In one of the sketches for the Hay Wain, it 's just three brush strokes. See image below.

See here some of his works accompanied by music of Dvorjak.