inspiration: Kazimir Malevich

Yesterday I went with my brother to the big Malevich exhibition in
the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. And big it is!!!

I'm impressed by this exhibition. It gives such a great overview on his work.
You can follow in steps what a talented and influential artist he has been and still is.

Starting by his early work, influenced by the impressionism, fauvism and symbolism.
Inspired by the Russian Folk Art, was part of the neo-primitivists, experimented with cubism and intorduced the a-logism, an associative, collage-painting style.

In 1913 he designed the decors and costumes of the opera: Victory over the sun.
A very futuristic opera. This was the point he came for the first time to total abstraction.

In 1915 he intorduced the suprematism on the exhibition 0,10 in Moskou.
Pure art, without objects, only geometric shapes on a white background.

In this exhibition the paintings have the same lay-out as in the famous 0,10 exhibition.

In 1928 the Stalinistic regime disapproved the abstract art officially.
Malevich turned back to recognizable forms in his work.
But also in this late work he preserved the suprematistic abstraction.

This is only a little glimp of what you can see on the Malevich exhibition.
It's untill 2nd of February 2014.

If you have a chance to visit it, it's really worthwile.

Ofcourse there's also some merchandise around this exhibition.
I'm always a bit surprised where they come up with.
Well, besides posters and cards they also sell special Malevich puppets!
I'm wondering what Malevich would have thought of that.

Zwarte Piet

In Holland we have a discussion about our traditional 'Sinterklaasfeest'.
Every year around December we play the game a bisshop arrives from Spain with a boat.
He brings lots of presents and Zwarte Pieten (black servants) along.
This may sound strange in foreigners ears, and people may think of rascism...

For many Dutchies Zwarte Piet is a kind of clown, making jokes and is innocent.
But nowadays we live in a multicultural society and more and more people are protesting against it. They want to change things about this tradition.

Now even the United Nations join in into this discussion.
They want to abolish it all. That makes a lot of dutch people angry.

I've made two illustrations about this theme. Find them also on SaltyStock

The first one shows Sinterklaas en Zwarte Piet looking for coloured servants
instead of black ones. In the row of candidates a Smurf, the Hulk and Tweety,
all wanting the job ;-)

Find this illustration also on Illustration Daily

In Holland we have an expression 'jezelf groen en geel ergeren' which means
'to become green and yellow from annoyance'
That's were above illustration is based on. Maybe if the discussion
continues for a while, we will have all green and yellow Pieten ;-)

9 x inspiration on Eyespired

Today you can find a blogpost about 9 of my inspirations on EYEspired
A blog full with inspiring things and I was asked to share mine

The text is in Dutch, but all the links you find in that blogpost are international
and worthwhile to be clicked on, so if you are interested, find my inspirations here

Holland - Rusland year

2013 is Holland - Rusland year.
A year to celebrate our friendship.

That's why there are several Russian exhibitions over the year.
At the moment there's a huge Malevich exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum
in Amsterdam. (It's on my wishlist)

But lately there are some troubbles...
First about the gayrights in Russia,then problems with the Greenpeace ship.
And after that some more incidents... It's on the every day news now.
For some people the party is over.

I've made some Holland - Rusland illustrations.
Above you see one of them:

Russian puppetplayer plays with Dutch marionet

Find the other illustrations here about this theme.

opening exhibitions in Amsterdam and Schiedam

Yesterday was the day of the two openings:
One in Pand Paulus in Schiedam and one in Galerie Oker in Amsterdam.

I chose to go to the last one and my partner went to the one in Schiedam,
so I also heard about that opening :-)

I will share some photos from both of them, starting with Galierie Oker:
(photos in Oker made by my sister and brother :-))

When we (my brother and I) came in the Galerie,
there were already a lot of people and it became a fun party :-)

Marleen, the owner of the Galerie held an opening speech
and proudly presented the brand new tableware 'lose a shoe'

It's a nice and cheerful exhibition with much variety.
I was happy to see my new mad tea party series between all this work.

The name of the exhibition is 'aan tafel' ('to table'),
so the artists and even some visitors brought
something delicious to eat for the guests.
Above one example of a pie, there were lots of them,
nicely presented on the new tableware :-)

exhibition Schiedam

As I told, unfortunately I couldn't go to the one in Pand Paulus in Schiedam.
But I'm lucky to have a partner who is interested in art,
so he went to the other opening and made some photos. :-)

It's a big graphic art exhibition with a first, second and even a third floor.
My work is exhibited on the second floor, nine faces and two bigger giclée prints

On the photo above you can see different rooms and if you look closely
you can see my work on the back :-)

This is another work of mine, which hangs on the opposite site: title - lost
This exhibition can be seen untill November the 3rd,
So I will have a chance to see it myself :-)

...I wish I was two Nellekes...

Sometimes I wish I was two persons. Coming Sunday is one of those days.

I'm very happy to see my work exhibit in two exhibitions, but...
the openings are both Sunday afternoon, and I want to be on both places
at the same time, so... I wish I was two Nellekes...

Both exhibitions have their own charm:

The first one 'gerakel en gedruk / prent of print' in Pand Paulus in Schiedam
is a big graphic art exhibition and shows the traditional graphic art techniques
as woodcut, etching, linocut and screenprint. But there's also room for
newer techniques as giclée print and photocopy

On Sunday November the 3th this exhibition will end with a discussion
afternoon about old and new possibilities in the changing world of the graphic art.

More information here (in dutch)

The second exhibition is in Galerie Oker

For this one I've made new work. I wrote about it in the previous blogpost.
More information here (in dutch)

Because I can't be two Nellekes, I decided to go to the one in Amsterdam
and November the 3th, I will be at he finissage in Schiedam.

It would be nice to meet you on one of these days!

Have a nice weekend :-)

new work!

Sunday the 13th of October will be the opening of the exhibition
'aan tafel' in Galerie Oker in Amsterdam

Especially for this exhibition I've made what I call the 'mad tea series'
The theme of the exhibition is around food, drink and tableware.

I played with this idea already for a long time
and this exhibition seemed to be a good reason to develop it further.

I had to find a special tea-character
First I drew a lot of teapots and cups. I gave them faces and bodies
And slowly the girl appeared with her head based on a tea-cup
Above you find a little selection of my sketches

I've made a giant list of all kind of teas: liber-tea, positivi-tea, simplici-tea
musicali-tea, synchronici-tea, creativi-tea and many many more
and chose five teas to play with and here's the result

Wouldn't it be a nice idea if those teas really existed?
If you are worried, you'll take a cup of simplici-tea
or when you feel stuck, you'll take a cup of creativi-tea.
Or if you are a little stiff, what to think of a cup of flexibili-tea?

The exhibition 'aan tafel' in Galerie Oker is from 13 October till 15 December
My work is only a little part of the exhibition, there's much more work from
many talented artists! Galerie Oker even launches the special tableware: 'lose a shoe'

world animal day

Hurray, it's world animal day!

childrenbooks

It's childrenbook week in Holland! We call that 'kinderboekenweek'

A week with special attention to the children book
I like that, because I love children books :-)

I've made these two illustrations and I must confess I feel like them :-)

Muscle man Paper Doll winners

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!
Here are the winners of the Muscle Man Paper Doll:

After gathering all the names here on my blog
and on facebook, I picked two winners:

Congratulations,Kirsty Elson and Maartje Jaquet

Thank you all for joining the game and liking Muscle Man Paper Doll :-)

Don't be sad if you didn't win, you can always go to the Red Cheeks Factory shop
and buy you a Muscle Man Paper Doll

(Kirsty and Maartje, Can you send me your adress,
then the Muscle Man Paper Doll will come your way!