01-04-2026: the FIESTA series
After two ‘FLOWER’ canvases, it is back to ‘Rock and Roll’: the ‘FIESTA’ series. From one style of painting to another. I love Bach and Jimi Hendrix. You can compare it to that.
From the balanced, the search for the perfect to the chaotic throwing open, surprising myself. Both with a cute head of curls, though…
I started the ‘FIESTA’ series in 2023. I was living in Utrecht, and yet a bull appeared. The tauromaquia is naturally connected to Spain; perhaps it was an aftershock or nostalgia. However, it was not a tauromaquia, but rather a reference to the symbolic meaning of bulls in various cultures.
I came up with the name ‘FIESTA’ because in Spain, bullfighting is sometimes called a celebration. Now, I do not exactly consider it a celebration; it is the dance of life and death, the ritual about to eat or being eaten, seducing a god into submission. It shows in a powerful way what life is all about. We have turned it into a ritual.
That life: however, I also often struggle with watching series about nature. There, it is not a ritual. You see the predator and the prey, where the prey narrowly escapes a violent death (or not).
I have two sweet cats who, unfortunately, due to city life, initially only had a balcony as an outdoor space (now there is a garden!), but still start meowing when they see birds. They are and remain predators.
Oh, those lovely, lovely little predators...
This series ‘celebrates’ life and death. I show, I do not preach.
The only certainty we have is death; we all have to face it, and that transition does not always happen in a pleasant or serene manner. Life is a struggle, and then death comes as a reward… There are quite a few religions that offer grand promises about what happens or might happen afterward. For me, death merely means the dissolution of the ego into the ALL. I am at peace with that. Maybe I should buy a gun sometime, just in case life doesn't suit me so well anymore…
Well, so life… ‘FIESTA’!
In Utrecht, I started ‘FIESTA II’ and ‘FIESTA III’.
In 2024, I returned to Barcelona. I was able to move into a house with a garden and a beautiful studio. I finished ‘FIESTA II’ that year, which bears the additional title ‘BLOOD BUTTERFLIES’. This was followed by ‘FIESTA III and IV’. Canvases that I had worked on over the years and which now took their final form.
For these canvases, alongside the works of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, I let myself be guided by those of Francis Bacon, among others.
In some of Bacon's canvases, orange is a fiercely present color.
I used that color in ‘I COVER YOU WITH LIGHT’, a canvas created in New York in 1993.
In ‘FIESTA IV’, it reappeared. The color fascinates me. That is why it is also present in ‘FIESTA V’, ‘VI’, and ‘VII’.
The color screams from the canvas, and that serves a purpose in this series.
In ‘FIESTA VII’, I went right to the edge in suggesting a head. Besides Bacon, I used to often look at the paintings of Frank Auerbach.
I had stumbled upon his work in Florence. An acquaintance had once taken lessons from him. After years of admiration, I now find his work boring, too sparse, lacking subtlety, and always the same trick. Sometimes beautiful, but for me, too often a dead formula, too forced. In the face of ‘VII’, I went right to that edge in a way that is akin to Auerbach’s style.
A painting is a painting and suggestion is important; it provides space, gives life.
I am currently working on ‘VIII’ and ‘IX’. One featuring a bull again, the symbol of strength, passion, and the absolute. In the other, a head is shown. Inspiration: 'BULLFIGHT 023 and 030', 'THE PUPPETTEER' and 'SPIT AND RAIN 02'.
I draw from my past. After forty-five years of painting, referencing old work is inevitable. And I may be able to reach further while standing on my shoulders.
I do not know which canvas will be finished first. I love working on multiple canvases at the same time; I jump from one to the other. I lose myself; it has to creak, occasionally leaning on what once satisfied me.
I think then of what Michelangelo claimed about his marble sculptures: he wanted to liberate the sculpture from the pieces in which it was trapped.
In a painting, the canvas is initially blank. To have that same ‘fertile ground’ to cultivate, I throw strokes onto the canvas almost blindly, giving precedence to my intuition. To then liberate the image from the fertile chaos. I wish to challenge myself, to surprise myself, to force myself. That gives life something festive: ‘FIESTA’!
Below are the finished ‘FIESTA’ canvases grouped together.
To view the canvases better and individually: click on the canvases above, and you will be taken to the site.
I started with music, I end with it. The video below makes me very happy. It shows me that setting yourself a difficult, almost impossible task is the best thing you can do to yourself.
It can happen that a painting only takes its final form after about four years. I often joke that a canvas is only finished when I have sold it.
‘A DAY IN THE LIFE: LET’S PARTY!’
