Bram Kinsbergen / Henri Toulouse Lautrec

Henri Toulouse Lautrec

La Comtesse Adèle de Toulouse-Lautrec

ca 1883

oil on canvas

93,5 x 81 cm 

Busy working on a series of work about McDonald's restaurants around the world, seen through Google Street View, I was browsing through a book of Henri Toulouse Lautrec.

I was so into this McDonald's thing, that when I saw the portrait he made of his mother, I immediately made the link with my own work. 

The way she looks, like she is torn into something (the making of this portrait) she doesn't want to be part of, is the look I wanted to give to my portrait of the mother of Ronald McDonald.

Her face painted like “the clown”, she couldn't resist the demand of her son to be portrayed like this, but I wanted to tell a different story by the way she looks.

Henri Toulouse Lautrec made a lot of portraits that have an unfinished result, that's the reason why I did the same with my work. 

It symbolizes the loneliness, the void of being the mother of Ronald McDonald.

Bram Kinsbergen, 2014

Bram Kinsbergen (BE)

Mama by Ronald McDonald by Bram Kinsbergen

2014

oil on canvas

50 x 70 cm

www.bramkinsbergen.com

Paul Corvers / Franz Kline

Franz Kline

Herald

1954

oil on canvas

146 x 208,3 cm

When I first discovered the work of Franz Kline, during my time at the Academy, it was a revelation. I was struck by the vitality, the power and the emotion. It has influenced my view on painting then and it still does now.

Paul Corvers, 2014

Paul Corvers (NL)

Untitled (690)

2014

oil on linen

30 x 40 cm

www.paulcorvers.com

Dona Nelson / Joan Miro

Joan Miro

Woman (Opera Singer)

1934

pastel and pencil on flocked paper

106,7 x 71,1 cm

MoMA, New York

Dona Nelson (US)

Lunar Eclipse (front)

2011

acrylic on canvas

121, 9 x 121,9 cm

Dona Nelson (US)

Lunar Eclipse (back)

2011

acrylic on canvas

121, 9 x 121,9 cm

www.donanelson.com

Denitsa Todorova / Rembrandt

Rembrandt

Danaë (detail)

1636

oil on canvas

185 x 203 cm

Hermitage Museum, Sint-Petersburg

By picking up symbols from the surroundings I create my own imaginary world: a picturesque twist, based on mystery illuminations and visual poetry. What I find essential is the state of the emotions that the viewer encounters after seeing my works... My works are very much influenced by perceptions of life and death, Christian orthodox religion, history of art, my childhood memories and the interactions with the surroundings. I have been deeply moved by the painting Danae by Rembrandt, one of his most magnificent works.

I challenged myself to represent the ideal of female beauty and the passion felt by a woman when she sees her lover. In the three portraits dedicated to this masterpiece I focused on the fata morgana illusion of something that we want to see but is not present and the imperfect conversion process by which live models were transformed into mythological figures.

Denitsa Todorova, 2014

Denitsa Todorova (BG/BE)

Rembrandt was here

2014

oil on canvas

50 x 60 cm  

www.denitsatodorova.com 

Henri Jacobs / Enguerrand Quarton

Enguerrand Quarton
La Pietà de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
ca 1455-1460
oil on panel
Musée du Louvre Paris

Thought

Could the first-ever drawing have been a single line drawn in the sand, or a line drawn with charcoal? Or was it the print of a hand covered with mud? Or the negative of that hand by using a spray of mud over the hand on a stone surface.
So, was it a single line in sand or a line of charcoal, the print of a hand, the leftover of a hand?

Or could the first drawing have been made by five fingertips dipped in mud to draw five short lines?
I suppose there wasn’t any idea or plan. The acting person didn’t foresee what she or he was doing, perhaps she was surprised or even enchanted.
As in Stanley Kubrick’s film '2001 A Space Odyssey' apes were surprised while playing to discover that a bone could be a weapon with which to hit other apes. From that moment civilization was born.

Henri Jacobs, 2014

Henri Jacobs (NL/BE)
Ecriture pictographique no 1
2007
oil pastel wall drawing
Galerie Paul Andriesse Amsterdam

www.henrijacobs.be

Johan de Haas / Rein Draijer

Rein Draijer

Tafelberg Zuid-Afrika

1958

oil on canvas

96 x 120 cm

Rein Draijer is a versatile artist (1899-1986), painter, sculptor, designer of stamps and a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. His work exudes a strong, sober and simple vision of reality. Both realistic and abstract values ​​form a cohesive unit. As a very valued teacher Rein Draijer taught us ordering perception as well as handling visual elements and materials.

I myself am a painter, restorer and a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem. In particular, I have focused on the handling of materials and the significance of light in that.'Monochroom Vaalgroen' (Monochrome Pale Green) is one-colored. The differences in color, light-dark and cool-warm are caused by the handling of tools that have left traces. In 'Composition', color, shape and handling of material can be observed simultaneously and therefore are interchangeable.

Johan de Haas, 2014

Johan de Haas

Monochroom Vaalgroen

1983

oil on panel

25 x 66 cm

collection Provincie Gelderland

 

Johan de Haas (NL)

Grijsgloed

1990

oil on panel

46 x 46 cm
collection Stedelijk Museum Schiedam
www.johandehaas.nl

Anet van de Elzen / Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

Portrait Louise Bourgeois

by Robert Mapplethorpe  

1982, printed 1991

photograph, gelatine silver print on paper

37,5 x 37,4 cm 

Louise Bourgeois - the photo of Robert Mapplethorpe really tells best why I admire her. Her life and work are interwoven, she is the work and the work is her. But of course it is actually a portrait, which again is in line with my work.

Anet van de Elzen, 2014

The work she produces does not stand for Anet van de Elzen. ‘It won't give you a glimpse of the identity of the artist', says one of the authors of this book, Brian Catling. The work stands for the viewer. There is nothing in between, not even Anet van de Elzen. In fact she goes one step further: she dissolves in her work. For her it is simply the natural thing to do. Everything Anet van de Elzen is not in daily life, she is in her work. ‘What it is not is an everyday thing'. You will recognize it as how you, the onlooker, experience her work. It is not an experience that can be shared with others; you can talk about it, perhaps, but you cannot share the other's feelings. Whatever you see has a different meaning than what another sees in it. You need to look for the significance of this work in yourself, not in the artist. When she talks about it, she talks about the manifestation of the image and how it came into being, about the physical form it has taken, but not about the effect it produces.
Alex de Vries, part of his text 'The inner plumb line' in Un beso al cielo, retrospective catalogue of Anet van de Elzen 2004

Anet van de Elzen

Untitled

2012

B & W photograph, gelatine silver print

110 x 75 cm 
 

 

Anet van de Elzen

Taste - One of five senses

Performance at Fierce Festival in Birmingham 

2013

photo by Nils Kenninck

Anet van de Elzen (NL)

X

From Echo the Now

2014

30 second clip
www.anetvandeelzen.com