An African Journey in Paint

Dear art lover,

I would like to take you on a journey.

In a 'previous' life I lived and worked a long time in Africa. I travelled the continent extensively, and got to know it well. I absolutely loved it there.

From this love flows a strong desire to express my feelings about this experience in paint. I therefore decided to embark on a project to do just that. I set my intentions, one of which is a focus on abstract(ed) work, while also allowing for realistic paintings. But other than that it is still largely a mystery to me what will be the exact outcome of the project, what the paintings will look like, and how it will all come about. I will have to feel my way forward and develop my own painting language to express what I feel intuitively. This requires experimenting, trying things out, evaluating the result, going back to to the drawing board and experiment again, and so on. The project will therefore be very much about the process. It will require keeping an open mind and heart and allowing my intuition to take the lead and guide me as the process unfolds. The eventual outcome will flow from this process.

In my mind's eye the project will be a substantial undertaking. I like that - the challenge of it, being able to put my teeth in it. The project will take time to develop. And I will take my time for it. I am very excited about it all. At the same time I sometimes feel somewhat overwhelmed by what I suspect may be a rather daunting enterprise, not just because of the amount of work, time and energy it will demand, and its complexity, but also because I do not know where it will lead me. But that is also exactly where the challenge and excitement is!

I hope you will join me on this journey. It is my wish that you will enjoy reading about my process and will be able to learn from it with me!