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.
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
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.
Bored with not painting grabbed a canvas and a picture I that was on my wishlist for a while alread, an old faded postcard with a young woman on it.
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I loved the colors, mostly bleu, turquoise and green but also some yellow, skin and purple.
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The expression that came out isn’t like the picture but I didn’t disagree so kept it like this. Surprised but not unpleasant, it could go both ways.
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It was done in a matter of hours. ‘Pour Vour Madamme’ it said on the postcard.
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Property of Fieke Fleskens
It has become a tradition, a ritual that reoccurs everytime I leave my atelier a couple days for travelling. The day before I pack my bag and make a painting. Therefor I always have some small canvasses in stock.
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This time I used a picture I took on the 25th birthdayparty of de Onderbroek, a concertplace in the basement of a former squat in Nijmegen. It was very busy and so, warm. This made the picture become shiny, the sweat on his face reflected a lot of light from my, I think, purple filtered flash. The photo was totally sharp and still. The image reminded me of the painter that makes the big black and white paintings of people who are either dancing or got shot. I remember Patrick Bateman in the movie American Psycho (it’s shown in the background of this link) had one of his paintings in his livingroom but I can’t remember the name of this artist.
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Good for a fast painting, portret, capture of a moment in paint, recreation of the intesity. A portret you can’t call it I think. The person who is pictured on the picture is a friend or an aquantance (always having trouble determining the border between those) but couldn’t say that I recognize him in this painting. Therefor the proportions of his face got a little distorted. It’s rather the emotion that was important to me. And no, he wasn’t on drugs.
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Surrendering to the music of this, very cool, electro-band. Gasping for more air, which had gotten moist by all the others, including me, that were also dancing without thinking about presentation; reasons; causes or goals. Just as I like to make paintings. » Continue Reading…
I made this photo years ago, when we went on a family-trip to London. At the end of the trip we were waiting at London Heathrow airport to go back home. Everybody was really tired and I decided to take a portrait picture of every0ne in the party. The picture of my dad appeared to be a classic portrait: sharp face, blurry background, characteristic flare of light in the eyes and an informal attitude toward you as the viewer.
It’s not very common for me to make a portrait but if the picture is interesting, I like doing it. You know what it is, it’s the thing that you bring life to paint together with a personality that you usually find somewhere else, at the subject of the portrait. I think I wouldn’t even be able to make a portrait without knowing somebody and beeing aware of it’s personality.