January 2012 - Sofie in the Sint Stevenskerk

This is not the first painting of this young woman I made. Her sophisticad appearance and her expressive eyes together with the curly hair make her ideal to play a role in my paintings.

October 2011 - Laura and Charlotte paintings

The Sint Stevenskerk in Nijmegen, The Netherlands is the towns major church. It has been reconstructed after being bombed by American bombers in WWII. The interior of this protestant church is very bright and has many corners and niches with ever changing light effect through the day. After some searching we found a corner in where the light left different shades of blue, grey and brown.

We had a painting session with the model Charlotte in the Studio of my colleague Jos. She is in her appearance an aristocratic beauty from the 19th century. After the session we took some photographs for additional practising. This painting is after one of those pictures in which she was standing near a window.

October 2011, Exhibition in Stepanavan, Armenia

Although I wasn't there in person, the opening of this small exhibition in Stepanavan was done by Sweta. She originates from this town in Lori Marz, Armenia.

July 2011 - Jasmine and her attempts to open a jewellery box

This is the first solo appearance on canvas for Jasmine, my daughter. Not even the least bit interested in her enviroment she seems to be busy finding out a way to open a little soapstone box I gave her. She sat on the bed with a wall a little behind her. The intricate cloth was a challenge for me. I am trying to enhance my skills on textures and all the different shades of light.

June 2011 - Portraits with lighter backgrounds

The last couple of weeks I have been working on some portraits with a fairer background. Somehow it gives the whole painting a different kind of atmosphere and depth. I have been used to the darker clair-obscur backgrounds because it is easier to focus on the lighter parts of a painting. But the depth of the greyish variant gives the opportunity to focus on the silhouette aswell.

The model depicted in this painting is Judith, who happens to have this angelic hair color (not sure if it is natural though). She is wearing a scarf I bough in Delhi back in 2007. The fabric is too intricate to paint in detail so i tried to paint the impression with all kinds of shades an colors. The pomegranate makes a nice colorful element in the painting.

This painting is all about the bond between mother and child. They are both wrapped in a saree which gives a nice contrast in texture and pattern. The colors are kept less saturated. Of course my little girl was unable to hold still for more than a sec so i had to do a photoshoot in order to make this painting.

Portret van Nijmegen pleinair painting competition

On june 12th the annual painting competition portret van Nijmegen was held again. With two other artists, we arranged a model and went to the Kronenburger park to paint her dressed up as Mariken van Nimwegen. A figure derived from a tale in which Mariken encounters the devil in the person of Moenen and takes her with him to gain the souls of the men she seduces.

May 2011 - Judith

Judith is a woman about my age who works at the Radboud university in Nijmegen. We had a painting session together with my colleague Jos and she was the model for that particular day. She wore a blue dress and the couch she was laying down on was unexciting. So when I came home the idea grew of painting her as her biblical equivalent. Maybe not in the exact historical context, but as far as I am concerned, that is irrelevant.

October 2010 - Exhibitions in Armenia

In october 2010 I went to Yerevan on invitation of the Armenian ministry of culture. The exhibition was held in the Architecture museum of Armenia. The first day after arrival I had to hold a press conference (never done that before). People in Armenia wonder why a foreigner would even bother to paint Armenian motives like chuches and monasteries. The anwer is simple for me (they are plain amazing). I got a lot of help from Sweta Abrahamian who lives in The Netherlans almost next door to me.

The day after that we went to the ministry of culture to meet the deputy minister (the minister was abroad). She was very kind and the next day she wanted to do the formal opening of my exhibion (picture below on the right).

I had to do a speech of some sort with my knowledge of the Armenian language. One can imagine how funny that must have sounded. You can check the video which gives a good impression, even if you don't speak Armenian.

After the vernissage I spent lots of time meeting people like students, artists, officials, artlovers, diaspora Armenians and those alike. I went to the national televion and a private channel for appearences in breakfast shows, I did some radio interviews and lots of newspaper and weblog interviews. One should by now expect that I might have turned into an arrogant bastard of some sorts... Luckily I had my daughter Jasmine (Hasmik) with me, 6 months by then and the appearance of an angel. Everywere we went she was the main attraction. I couldn't beat that.

Later on we had a group exhibition with Armenian artists in the Naregatsi institute. Their work was amazing and it was great to do a show togetjher with Sevan Naccashian, Tigran Asatryan, Armen Khojoyan and Nana Minasyan. The latter invited me home in a very Amenrican suburb in the north of Yerevan. Turned out she was the wife of the famous singer Ruben Hakhverdyan, or professional alcoholic as he called himself (I couldn't see any booze though).

I really wish to come back soon.