WHITE SUN
Before leaving for my trip around the USA, I started working on a new art series. I am not sure what I will call them, but they are figurative works that significantly include my life in the USA. While in my new homeland, we, as a family, welcomed new animals into our life. Horses.
It is well known that paintings of horses are among the most common artworks out there. The art world is full of the history of equine arts, going back thousands of years, delivering a fascinating visual homage to this animal, as marvelous now as it always was. No matter the nation, the historical period, the religion, the culture, the tradition, or the simple everyday life, horses have managed to find their way in art for many centuries. Their numerous roles have been depicted in different types of horse paintings countless times: through military art, which portrays horses in battle and the cavalry of knights through the art of the American West and its famous Native American tradition of cowboys, which was bound to have equine subjects. Horses were often considered highly valuable, whether to the poor men who would use them for labor and transportation or the wealthy, for whom they symbolized prestige and power. Imminently, horses have been man’s companion throughout the eras, and man continues to admire the nobility of spirit, virtue, and fortitude of this extraordinary animal in ways that will always involve art and its many forms.
For me, the horse had always been a sign of respect and the prestige of nature. I've never seen these animals as a working force but instead, as gracious creatures roaming free. If I close my eyes, I see feral Konik horses running on dunes in the Netherlands.
When we lived in The Netherlands in 2014, there was a beach close to The Hague where I would take my oldest daughter to see those grayish horses. Those were no longer wild because they would come close to the beach fence, and you could pet them.
As you already know I paint the environment that surrounds me, so it would feel very untrue to myself if my horses would not appear one day in my work. I guess that day came in this new art collection in making.
In these photos in this letter, you can only see selections of the parts from the artwork "White Sun" that I have been working on. I had a pretty long journey with this painting. And it's a sentimental painting, to say at least.