Balladeer Exhibit

These ‘Dutch’ paintings evolved out of a single painting from a year ago, when I was commissioned by a couple to invent a scene of Dutch children. They wanted to have something of their heritage at home. I am not of Dutch origin, but I love the preservation of heritage and pored through archives to find imagery that I could adapt for a new painting. In the process, I found the most incredible photos, and once the painting was finished and delivered, I continued.

The paintings here are all keepsakes from a culturally rich world, preserved in the archives within the public domain. There are more images saved than could ever fill a room or town. And though not my own heritage, I feel the strength of place and time and of a people long ago.

In ‘translating’ these pictures, the biggest challenge was the lack of color – the sources were all black, white, and sepia. It’s so obvious now, but wasn’t apparent to me until later. At first, I wanted to be authentic and looked at color examples for clothing and settings. But in time, the light and dark qualities of the originals became more intriguing to me. The riddle of color gave me a chance to look harder and ask other questions. What could I learn about light, line, form, tone, or pattern instead? I like combining abstract and real picture making, so how could I do that here?

For each photo, I reflected on what I liked about it, what I didn’t know, and what I wanted to learn in the process of picture making. I made them using oil, egg tempera, acrylic paint, pencil, stencils, and transfers on canvas, and sometimes wood. For some, there are small sketches, experiments on different surfaces, and prepared backgrounds.