BY WAY OF PARCOURS……….
Curriculum Vitae
Born in 1947 I graduated as an artillery officer in the Dutch army at a moment in history, that, as it later turned out, the Russians had shelves full of plans to attack, using the German plains to massively deploy their tanks. Having read Céline, Remarque & Grass in the meantime, I am intensely grateful that those plans never materialized. I take, as a consequence, nothing for granted in life. Later, my reasons to start a career as an artist-painter were no match when confronted with the ideas of others, notably my father’s. And rightfully so, when looking back at my life. I started studying tropical agriculture at the time Paris was ruled by Sorbonne students (1969), and their credo “L’imagination au pouvoir” was chalked on the city’s blind walls. I ‘married’ Africa as a development scientist in 1977 and stayed wed locked for almost a quarter of century, actually living in 4 different countries, in total for more than 15 years, and working as a consultant in 20 other countries. In a physical sense it felt like a nomad’s life. A hard one to make friends, for example. In my head, however, I created a body of knowledge & experience that delivered coherence and steadiness in my existence. In 1991, just for the love of it, I wrote a PhD-thesis, with the multiple roles of perennials integrated in yam cropping systems as subject. Then in 2000 suddenly, and almost overnight, I changed my life; I settled permanently in France, and began portrait painting. There has never been time to seek formal education in arts, and, actually, I feel happily uneducated, for one because there was no need to “deschool”! Now, 300 odd paintings further along the road I know my subject; invariably my paintings reflect intimacy, vulnerability and ageing. It has not made me a popular artist, and I know why; neither of these notions receives a warm welcome when spectators struggle with their own body. And there is, as you all know, quite a bit of struggling going on. So be it. I don’t paint to make a living, I live to paint. And, most important, I can afford to just do that. Something I feel grateful about.