About my work

Portraits are, as you may have realised from viewing my drawings, my first love. Some of my illustrations are simply born to cheer up their surroundings, others arrive from darker places and are therefore slightly more uncanny, surreal or quirky.

With my illustrations I aim to create an atmosphere around a text. I want them to fire the imagination rather than nip it in the bud.

On portraits

I remember my first portrait very vividly. I must have been about 4 years old and enthusiastically scribbling on a piece of paper, until at one point I realised that what I had drawn looked like a human being. Or at least the 4 year old version of a human being. Her arms were stick arms and her legs were stick legs and she was wearing a short red dress. I can't remember whether she was wearing shoes. What I do remember is the look on her face. It was a surprised look. Nowadays I like to think that the portrait I had drawn that day wasn't a portrait of a random lady, but a portrait of me being surprised that I had just managed to draw a complete lady from head to toes.

People say that when an artist portrays the portrayed, one actually portrays him or herself. I wouldn't want to speak for all the portrait artists in the world, but I myself can confirm this concept, for how is one capable of capturing an honest impression if one can't connect and empathise with their subject?

As someone who is endlessly fascinated by the twists and turns of the human being and the human mind, I want to have some sort of idea of the person I am portraying, or in more floaty words, a feeling. I believe that if you're open to it, a soul can be seen in the eyes, but you have to see rather than look.

On the subject of the Uncanny

The Presence of Absence

The lack of control over our mind, body and events in life, loss, absence, and family interactions are threads that run through my work.

Most of us seem to like the idea of being in control of our lives, to have things going the way we want them to go. It gives us an impression of safety and security, which should therefore make us feel confident and happy. Unfortunately, we can't control life: life controls itself. The only thing we do have some control over, is the way we deal with all events that life exposes us to.

If we give life a closer look, we see there is only one way to have absolute control over it: we could decide to let go of life. We've never had any say in being brought into this world, so therefore it seems only fair to have a certain control over our own departure. After all, it could be one of the ways of dealing with life. Sadly though, this decision is not always made in an optimum state of consciousness, which makes it even harder for the family and friends who are left behind to cope with.

This brings me to my next fascination: How well do we actually know the people we are related to by blood, the people we grew up with from birth? We didn't ask for them to be our family, they were just linked to us from the moment that we were born. It is up to us how, or if, we develop this lifelong relationship with them. Are they an obligatory burden or a safe harbour?

If they are a burden, could we then decide to disregard them from our lives? And if we do so, might we regret this decision after they've passed away, realising that we've taken their presence for granted and therefore missed our chance to reconcile?

Or if our family is our harbour of safety, then how well do we actually know what goes on in their minds? Could we disadvantage ourselves and our relations by being overprotective? And if we are too smothering, then how would this affect the way we and our relatives deal with unfortunate events that happen in our individual lives? To what extend can we rely on our family and at what point do we need to start relying on ourselves?


This text supports the exhibition titled "The Presence of Absence" and is dedicated to my aunt Judith. The text is based on the following drawings:
> My mother's family portrait
> My father's family portrait
> Judith and her birdcage
> My brother and I