In November 2018 Maurice T.B. asks me to make the painting ‘NIGHT’.

He sends me a poem and as further indications, that it should have the longing of being together with the loved ones and the sad knowledge of the finitude of relations as subject. Nothing in the work should refer to forms existing in our environment.

I collect images of others and myself that should help me get started.

Soon my thoughts lean towards the stars and the universe as subject. Stars are only seen at night… This refers to images in the real world. But lately the thought has occurred to me that photos of the universe and those taken by an electron microscope are actually imagination.

The starry sky gives a sense of infinity, an enormous presence out of reach, caught as I am on the earth. This is a start.

In the infinity I search for an anchor, something to hold on to. I want a real ‘fleshy’ presence.

The idea of the vagina takes shape. During Rosa’s pregnancy of Gala I realized that this is the only moment that two souls are completely one. Only a pregnant woman feels this miracle and maybe the child in the womb. After having cut the umbilical cord we are doomed to a solitary life, every once in a while fooling ourselves of melting into one with another being.

The vagina is a way out of this solitude. Crawling back is the ultimate undoing of this lonely life, the way back, the way back in time; the unification with the all. The combination of the universe and the vagina makes a black hole a vagina of the universe. A warm hole…

I start.

The process goes from light to dark. As soon as possible the white of the canvas must be defined. Time and space should be suggested. Time by suggesting movement.

After a couple of weeks a deepening, an unreachable space takes form (see image 7 of the stages). It is as with windows. Windows show a world of which one is not part. Is a painting such a window too?

Beams or threads appear (image 9).

I remember a dream I had in the early nineties. It showed up on one of those in alcohol-drowned nights: 

‘What a dream. Did I drink too much lately? First there was the concert of Rita Pavone. An enormous woman of about 3 meters high with gigantic swollen calves. One of them was full of dry marram grass. Nothing to worry about… The scenery was of the beautiful fifties San Remo style, lots of Formica and neon lights. She moved uncomfortably round on roller skates. I was sure; she was a sweet woman. She sang something like: ‘la vita é una motocicletta, dov'é il rubinetto’. Till then the dream was ok. We sat down next to a stream with marram grass. I made love to her and the drummer, Charlie, a guy with a thin moustache. Charlie was a tidy boy. Before the act he had carefully folded his smoking over the moped. Then he took his penis out of his bathing trunks. It was a sweet little worm with again marram grass. Before I had time to look at the flora on his arms, the cyclist had arrived and beheaded the both of us. That was Charlie and I. The heads rolled down the street in the helmets (didn’t we take them off?). It was slightly unpleasant.

I woke up with a bad taste in the mouth and aching stomach.

Today too, I tend to the bottle… What is this? This desire to loose myself, get rid of me? I am doing good things…'

So far the past. Thoughts and emotions during the making of the painting:

February 16, 2019:

'Yesterday the cosmos fell on my head. I looked at the coble stones and thought that all would collapse. But that was too small. Things collapse in a world. And the world floats in the universe. I walk home from the ice cream shop, what kind of distance is that? Imagine that the world collapses in the universe in the void? I felt that for an instant, I was dizzy.’

And:

'The photo of the black hole; can someone explain me how to be able to make a photo of something that swallows up light? All is imagination…

'Is the night the emptiness between two days, as life is a flash of light between two eternities of darkness (Vladimir Nabokov en Blaise Pascal)? So an inversion? Or does the night silently creep underneath the days? Do the days drift like fake islands on the endless night?

'The night is the moment of dreams. Is it the moment of absolute truth in which reason floats aimlessly round?'

'Have I failed? Is it possible to give an image of something that is not linked to anything in my surrounding reality? Is it possible to depict our essence of life? I made an attempt with this painting.' 

The painting was finished in March. Very few assignments have given me so much to think about.

Different stages of the painting:

(Click on an image to see the work and details on the site)

During the process Maurice and I wrote often. Not all was just about the working process. I also wrote about which music accompanied me while at work. Especially 'O Mensch! Gib acht' of Mahler's third symphony helped.

O Mensch! Gib Acht!

Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?

‘Ich schlief, ich schlief –,

Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht: –

Die Welt ist tief,

Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht.

Tief ist ihr Weh –,

Lust – tiefer noch als Herzeleid:

Weh spricht: Vergeh!

Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit –,

– will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!’

Friedrich Nietzsche

(click on the text to see and hear)

Conclusion.

It’s always the same. You can try what you want, the ‘soul’ sneaks in without a solid proof, visible or not. The only thing you can do is to manoeuvre yourself in a situation where you invite the ‘soul’ to manifest itself.

What remains is my wish to undo myself.