Kaj Derks

It was about a year ago that I started flashing away when taking pictures. That of course is not a good idea at an artshow. Therefor this gallerist got kind pissed off.

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Anyhow, I want to keep it short because the painting and me aren’t friends yet.

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It’s colorful but I don’t like the colors, they seem to miss complexity. Than, what the colors miss on complexity, the compotition makes up for. Beeing a total ballbreaker. Okay, there I’m proud of but why can’t I like them both?

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I figure that will need some time.

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Ow, If you are wondering why on the painting this guy doesn’t look pissed. I didn’t want to show this guy like that since it was my fault that he acted like he drank a bucket of piss anyways.

While a lot of people have already asked me if I’m aware of the fact that this may make people think it is a Mondrian rip off, I am happy to be back into applying de Stijl to my work. This is my main concern in painting, it is a language I am trying to learn.

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After finishing this I have the exact feeling that I now know the answer of the question: why do I like the picture that I bought at the fleamarket in Berlin. Why did I pick this picture, among others, from a box with hundreds of pictures? Of course I could have explained this verbally but it would miss that what it makes it an image. If you want to answer this question without translating it to letters and words, than de Stijl is the language to communicate in.

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Okay, the result is not the virtous picture with a shitload of expression or a deeper meaning and also not a social/politically engaged work. Now, it’s a reaction from itself about itself placing it somewhere in the universe.

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At this moment I’d better shut up.

It is wellknow that most times a flash kills more than it adds to a photo. This picture was a great example for that.

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The picture I used was flashed straight in the face, resulting in this lady in a uniformlike costume without an expression. Her face plain white like a mask.

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Giving me the oppertunity to play around with a shitload of white paint. But on second hand, I think I should take it easy with the titaniumoxide.

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With the other paintings to not overdo it.

The title has come to this with a little help from a Mexican friend. I needed her imput because the subject of this portrait would sure give me a bitching if I used her widespread language improperly. Not sure if I did it right but at least now I can blame someone else.

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Okay, the little story that goes with the portrait. We were waiting for the bus out of Berlin, to Hamburg. It was midsummer, too hot to put in words, she had just gotten rid of her haste, after a busy weekend, by reaching the busstation on time leaving a small hour to catch up. Which was also short because I’d rather hang out with this hermosa for hours and days and weeks and stuff, but that on the side. In this short hour we got sushi, our usual communication problems, quality time, sunlight and the joy of being in eachothers’ presence on a brick wall that resembled a plant trough of which it’s content had become a symbol of faded glory. It was full of weeds yet on the flipside it could be said that nature had taken over, it has been said that I am an optimist.

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Anyhow. Aware of the growing urge to paint portraits I asked her if I could take a picture of her. She went shy, a feeling that I can understand since it resulted in a stereotypical romantic setting of a young man with crappy-ass analog Pentax taking a photo of a very elegant young lady, and thus I went shy as well. The picture ended up very good and I won’t start rambling about the beautifull light and all because I do that all the time. The only thing there was is that I totally forgot which film I used to get this result. It could be some film that makes soft colors but it could as well be a film that I deliberately put on right in the sunlight to mess it slightly up. Who knows.

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In the end I finished the last sushi and we walked to the bus. We hugged, threw her luggage in, hugged again and our hour was over. When I showed her the picture, I can recall her saying that she went a bit shy, this time I didn’t.

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I decided to make it in oil paint » Continue Reading…

If Otto would be in his twenties right now, in Berlin where I bought this picture, he would be the boss of all hipsterparties.

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This because of his epic moustache. It is for this reason that I bought his portrait.

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I think he’s got a lot to thank his stache for. At least this painting.

While painting after an old portrait I bought on a fleamarket in Berlin I noticed the similarity with a friend called Eline. It’s not like two drops of water but nevertheless the idea got into my head and I decided it could stay.

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No need to find another name for the painting if one has grown onto  one is it? Maybe I’ll call this one ‘Old old Eline’. Than Eline can decide for herself wether she identifies with it or not.

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I don’t know what more to tell about this picture so it’s best to leave it to this.

When this painting reached this state of beeing, it was immediatly clear that it was finished. Finished in the sense that it didn’t require any more work spend to it. Strangely I still don’t recognize it, although I do accept it as such (I made it, I was there), as beeing my work.

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Why do I have such hard time recognizing my own work?

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I’ll start calling some concrete possible causes according to the KISS principle: there is so much black, the lines and colorfieldborders are far from sharp, just a thin layer of paint and worst of all, it looks like and abstract orgy!

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Nothing bad about paintings or other work that consist of these characteristics. I only never expected to make something myself with one these things in it, let alone all combined.

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Property of Amarins Thiecke

Looking straight into the camera, friendly but not really a smile. That’s because it’s a pasphoto.

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Due to the fact that this is a painted portrait she’s got color. The picture that served as the examle is almost black and white. Her skin and the background are so white and her jacket and hair so black that only the second time you look at it, it becomes clear that it’s actually a full color print. Well, a bit of fantasy and sensibility was enough to make it lively and colored.

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This picture has been sent a long time ago by this girl herself. We met, although ‘met’ is a great word for it, when I was about 18 or 19 year old thru the social networksite Hi5 in an era even before Facebook. Now after almost ten years we are still friends, also on Facebook, and still have never met.

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For me she is an entity of which I’m aware she exists without ever having to meet her in real life. A couple of pictures, some handwritten letters and a Facebookprofile are the proof. The painted portraits make it able to get to know her character by closely scanning her expression and reproducing it on the canvas.

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Will I ever find out if I’m right? Well, we’re not dead yet.

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Not for sale

Coming down the stairs I saw Silvia looking out the window. Not a bad view I thought and took a picture.

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The resulting image appeared to be a combination of Silvia’s back, that what was outside the window and the reflection in the window showing a part of her front and the stairs we’d just descended.

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To paint Silvia’s back wasn’t very interesting but she provided a contrast with the unambiguous background. Okay…. it was a great oppertunity to play around in a large colorfield with big brushes.

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It’s hard to paint ceveral worlds in on the same piece of surface. Balancing out the weight each one has is the hardest. In the end I figured I couldn’t do any better and signed it.

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On the back of course

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Not for sale

By now it’s obvious that not all the pictures I paint are self-made. They used to be but I’ve reached a mindset where I don’t value the source of an image so much anymore. Resulting in the usage of old black and white pictures and maybe – who knows – in the future any picture I see.

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A couple weeks ago I was in Berlin on a flea-market and bought a bunch of ofd portraits of pretty woman, with no single reference to what is pretty except my own at that moment. Knowing that the people pictured are nowadays elderly or even already deceased gave the oppertunity to make images of what I thought of when looking at the picture.

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This way I wouldn’t call it a portrait. More likely a collection, or a collage of features that I found remarkable or appealing translated in paint.

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The product looks to me more like a classical symphony of colors and brushstrokes than a portrait. Since I know it’s a painting it feels like music and gives me an idea of what music would look like if it was visible.