Art
What happens to the characters in a book no one reads anymore?
What happens when you turn your back on the past? Can you be sure it won’t change while you look away?
The works depict feral children’s book animals from the turn of the last century, taken from a book that has fallen into oblivion. A sudden obsession made me delve into the archives and read countless books from the turn of the last century. The fact that they so often depict humanized animals stems from the centuries before when fables had their heyday as stories for all ages. What I can’t stop thinking about is what their lives look like today – freed from the gaze of the writer and the reader. My work is an exploration to try to get close to them.
To work on the back of old oil paintings is an environmentally conscious stance as well as a creative choice that underlines the connection between the present and the past. Letting older stories live on alongside the new ones. As the different cultural layers of archaeology…
Painting on the back of old oil paintings has its challenges and requires you to see the material and unevenness as part of the work. Trying to find the right kind of tablecloths is an ongoing treasure hunt. On the back there are usually landscapes or plants. I completely refrain from motifs with people because I don’t want to create an “energetic clash” between the motifs that to share both sides of the canvas.
I use acrylic with glazes to get a glossier finish and contrast between the subject and the old wooden frames and the aged, sometimes slightly stained linen.
