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I have been an artist for most of my life and in my younger years did very well as a commercial designer. My art did not start to blossom until I was 26 years of age and for me much out of necessity. The year was 1959 and I had just arrived in Sydney ,Australia. My knowledge of English was not sufficient. to apply for a position I was accustomed to while in service of the KNSM (the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company). It seemed logical to try my knowledge I had in textile designing and was surprised with the success I had with the first design studio I visited.
Those were my young and ambitious years when much I had experienced , had served me extremely well. Now, that I stand at the final leg of my creative years , ambition no longer is important. I now find that expressing my inner sensitivity of those early years were as a necessity in the development of my creative abilities , mainly in the visual art.
As a young man I was not always permitted to express emotions , especially when they tended to be sensitive. Most of the time and in particular during my adolescence and teen years these were behaviours not becoming of young men. "You are a man and you must be strong and defend yourself to the hard world that surrounds you" I hear my father say.
Impressions are the nourishment of our senses and therefore most important. We as humans cannot live without these. Imagine if we could completely close off our senses of hearing or seeing just to block out undesirable occurrences. But impression are not often understood and for most of us become moments of discomfort. We can react by becoming angry or frightened leading to all the consequences thereof.
In the event we have answers to questions we had put to ourselves about whatever subject , we might first of all relate to these by a verbal expression. Others might write letters or books to express themselves in detail by using an expedient language. Then there are those who would express their feelings about food by creating marvellous dinners. A few , would look into how they would express glamorous women by creating fashionable dresses . For the more masculine trend , there is the expression for fast speeding cars or intricate working machineries. etc,etc.
As for myself , a visual artist , I have very often deliberately taken concern of whatever is happening around my daily life. Much of it is by reading newspapers or listening to news on the radio or watching television. But much of it is by direct association with my own surroundings. As an example, there was my curiosity of the plight of our indigenous residents who were living near my newly chosen home in Kuranda , as small community tucked away in the rainforest of North of Queensland. In order to understand rather than to feel uncomfortable in an atmosphere not familiar to me , I expressed my feelings by creating images of whatever came to my mind energized by my sensitive emotions. What I could not understand with ease I researched of references about their culture , that at the time was available. With this information together with my technical experiences in the art of drawing and painting , I created the series "Exaltation"; and the following year ,"Dreaming the dreamer".
The paintings of the first series got the attention of signora Miriam Salinas a Mexican lady and resident of Miami, USA, who suggested I go to Mexico and try my impressions of the ancient culture of Meso America. The first series "Ave Azteca" was unexpectedly successful when it was on exhibition at the institute of anthropology in San Miguel de Allede and which part of the series ended in New York at Agora galleries.
The second series , that of my expressions of the Popol Vuh ,the sacred book of the Mayans , was created in conjunction with the year of the Indigenous people of the world (1993), also found its inauguration in San Miguel de Allende , this time at the Institute Allende , an art centre. It was opened by Ms Helen O' Dwyer the art and culture representative of the Australian Embassy to Mexico.
I will not go into too much detail about my experiences as I plan to tell more about how and why I had created many images  in other text you will find in the various series folders of my web-site.
The method I used to create much of these images are my own and as such are by little means connected to whatever intricate existing technique available. For now my art is understood by a few who have admired my style and choice of colour. Most of them live in the USA , The Netherlands and Germany. and now also in Australia.
Australia where I live is my adopted country after the breakdown of my own ,the old Dutch Indies colonies. I have a desire to offer my art to this nation as my gratitude for the opportunities in life it has granted me.
The freeing of myself from a routine I had become so accustomed  to in my arts now ,  came about when doing the series  'Heart and Headland'  and   brought  about  a complete new trend of  means of expression. To my art it meant a change in style and medium ,  a routine that had  been  so  coherent   to the tradition of visual art  I was familiar with for most of my artistic life. It meant a different  approach to the manner I form images in my mind . Gone was the slumber of eventuating manifestations that before saw its formation to a tradition I had held myself to since my extensive training in the past. In its place a freedom was born , not just in the way I executed my expressions but also  in having adopted  an  environment so different to what I had been  used to. It made me happy with what I was doing even if I had moments  of  hesitation that what I might be creating would   not to be accepted as sincere by the art public.
Please feel free to browse through  my various series and don't hesitate  to E-mail me,George the artist with  your comments or questions.

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