About Last Night
25 December, 2004
foto: Maurice Amoureus
Happy Merry Christmas Everyone!
24 December, 2004
Yesterday I made some comments on illustrators in Holland
My friend Mark is an illustrator and this is the new year card he send us today.
Also a Happy Merry Christmas to you Mark.
Check out his site at
www.marksmolders.com
Moira Hahn
23 December, 2004
It’s not art that dominates today’s visual culture and in the U.S. the home of Pop Art they are very aware of this. Over there illustrators are taken more serious as a creative designer and artist. It’s easier to get your illustrations put up in a decent Art gallery in the U.S. then in Holland. Generally the art-scene here is more conservative and traditional as we do have some fresh illustrators and designers but they hardly get exposure.
The paintings of Moira Hahn are very narrative and make me think she was an illustrator before, there’s also a Time cover illustration on the front page of her portfolio. There aren’t many illustrators here in Holland who crossed over from illustration to planet Art. www.moirahahn.com (link via art-bbq)
Stillness in Movement
20 December, 2004
‘The energy of a spinning toll is the perfectness of stillness in movement’
Said by an Aikido Sensei on National Geographic Channel. On Friday they did a special martial arts day!
The quote made me think of a dancing Derwish.
This summer in India my yoga teacher mentioned that the dancing Derwishes represent a distant branch of Kriya Yoga. This yoga is a very ancient technique. Long ago the Kriya method was still whole and undevided. Kriya masters traveled from the Indian subcontinent to Tibet and across the Middle East towards Europe. The tradition dispersed into pieces and changed, due time and influence of other cultures. Compare it to a body. The head is here the arms are there, but the body is not one anymore. Dancing Derwishes work from the hearth. Opening the hearth chakra is an advanced step in Kriya yoga.
The Portfolio of Erik Mattijssen
18 December, 2004
You will not find many genuine drawing artists on the web. The collection of online portfolio’s on the net is dominated by illustrators and designers showcasing their pixelized skills with illustrator or photoshop. Often they can build slick (flashy) websites. But hey! ‘The Art of Drawing’ is really something else. There aren’t many around believe me.
The portfolio of Erik Mattijssen spans over a period of fifteen years and you can see where he’s coming from. My own portfolio on this site goes back to 2001. Of course there’s more but it’s not on line.
I really like to see where I was a few years ago, I often imagine a tin red line that I hold on to. I am aware this red line goes through all my works and attached to it are my themes and skills. It helps me not to wander away from the story I want to tell and what I want to show.
It’s very nice to see what Mattijssen has done before. Those years are like a prologue to the chapter where he is now. You see his work evolving and I not only mean that his skills get better. He is drawing austere still lives with twigs in 1993, very linear and precize. Slowly his drawings become populated and more colourfull. His still lives become interiors; Mattijssen steps back and with ordinary elements in out of place arrangements he shows us some very eerie scenes. There his use of colour really doesn’t feel that odd anymore and that’s where I like Mattijssen most.
Even when he’s drawing little flowers, eatables and botttles I keep wondering: “What is this man is actually brewing there, in his studio?”
www.erikmattijssen.nl
You see, it takes quite a few years to get somewhere. When I’m drawing there’s no rush, I am still in the prologue.