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THE NEW YORK PAINTINGS
Living in New York between 1990 and 1993 had a strong impact on my work.
There the light can be very sharp. The wind often comes from the inland, while the city is on the sea. Having the reflections of light on the water nearby, but with a dry air, the contrast between light and shade is extreme and the shadows can have very hard edges.
But maybe more it was the extreme and intense way of living that influenced me.
In those years Manhattan was not as cleaned up as it is now. The high life and low life existed right next to each other.
My studio was in Williamsburg. Every day I took the L-train from Manhattan to work.
Two memories of the studio:
A guy passing by trying to get the monkey of his back. Heroin was the drug in those days.
Another guy tested his Camaro for illegal races along my street. There were small textile companies in the neighborhood. Many owners had their old Cadillac’s parked along the sidewalk and all the alarms went off as he passed by…
The look of Manhattan, especially from Brooklyn, inspired me to paint the series ‘My Metropolis’. I created my own ‘city of high rises’ stacking up portraits of the friends I made there and the ones abroad.
The idea was a spin off of the series ‘Heads In Boxes’ I had made before. ‘My Metropolis’ was more personal. I developed the idea of an ongoing composition. Every portrait can stand on it’s own, but because the colors and shapes continue in the surrounding portraits, it is also part of a bigger composition.
I made many sketches. In the sketchbooks I pinned down impressions, developed ideas, I figured out compositions.
I took in so much in such a condensed time, that many sketches never got to the stage of a full grown painting. Some did though.
Life in New York felt ‘spiky’. I made a sketch called ‘spider’ to give that feeling an image. I left the title for a better one: 'New York Life'.
After several versions it finished as simple as possible.
Title of the first: ‘New York Life Red’. Done the red version, I went for a green one, first upside down. It got on its feet. It shows the pushy way of walking through life needed to survive in the Big Apple.
A more complicated story is ‘The sacrifice’. Relatively new to me were all the beggars on the streets. On every corner there was somebody sticking out a plastic cup, asking for money. There again that ‘naked’ pushy kind of life was shown.
My thoughts here went in the opposite direction. Instead of asking in ‘The Sacrifice’ the person forces something on to the spectator…
The structure behind refers again to the grid of ‘My Metropolis’; the stacked up portraits.
‘The Untouchables’ was my big diptych (became a four-part) of New York.
What the story here is I don’t know. I started with an idea, a composition, but halfway the painting took over.
This can lead to an even better result. At a certain moment the painting can ‘take over’. This creates a ‘story’ that works in a painterly way and at the same time leaves open more than one interpretation.
On the right there is a string of heads. I had read Nietzsche and was charmed by his interpretation of the ‘choir’ as a conscience in the Greek tragedies.
Unfortunately I don't have a good image of the last painting I made in New York. The figure is floating in space.
I sold it to my gallery owner of Brussels. Read about him and the other paradise birds in my chapter:
The idea of the ‘FALLEN ANGELS’ (click on the grey title to read that chapter) was initiated in New York, but found its shape in Amsterdam.
Because it belongs to the post New York period and because it digs quite deep, I don’t write about it here.
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