The end of XP20

Do you remember that I started an expressionist painters group called ‘XP20’ (‘Expressionists in the New Twenties’)? Over the last 3 years, several painters joined XP20 and almost as many left. One of them, the most enthusiastic and dedicated member, was Stas Lyashenko. He is from Ukraine and he recently fled to Germany.

From unimportant to main thing

I have always had an A-line and a B-line in my art. The A-line is the serious work, carefully done, with a lot of thinking in between the sessions. Like for instance a landscape, where I may work on a row of trees maybe 10 times to make them more and more realistic. While at the same time trying to maintain the expressionist style.

You are no painter when…

I am a painter and I am also still an active psychologist. Yesterday I was teaching a training in ‘provocative coaching’. My colleague Jeffrey was talking about how interdependent we are as people. In a very real sense, you are no writer if you have no readers. You are no parent if you have no children. And… you are no painter if nobody sees your work.

Unexpectedly, peace in my painting

What’s happening? Remember I was talking about artists having their ‘periods’ and the idea of creating a body of work of similar paintings? In my last post before this one?

How do you choose a direction in your art?

You probably noticed: painters have ‘periods’. They make similar works for a while, could be a few months or could be years. And then their work changes. Again they make works that are similar, but different from before: they have gone into a new ‘period’.

How do you compose an exposition?

What have I been working on? In the second half of 2020, a lot of my energy has been seeping into my ‘day job’. We have been struggling a bit with passing on our psychological institute to the next generation. Still, I did manage to do some art and I have been building an online exposition. It’s on the front page of this website.

Improving by removing

What am I working on? Well, I spent the better part of a day producing a virtual exhibition on my home page. I am excited about how it came out! But there is not much more to say about that, because you probably already saw it when you came in. Another thing today, was a comparison. I updated a work yesterday and I have good photo’s of before and after, because I thought I was finished with it. So I could compare.

Zipping through the process

What’s going on? Struggling, searching, wandering, doubting, questioning, that kind of thing, mostly. Working on finishing two communal works from the XP20 group. Tacking canvas on frames. Applying varnish. Hanging out on the B-line.

Here is a B-line work. Totally abstract. I felt this was a new thing. I was amazed that it appeared, without me having a lot of control over it. Mostly continuing and continuing and then continuing some more. Cutting and pasting from A to B…

A Full Catalog for an Exposition

The last of the homehauses

I had finished the homehaus series, but then Dike Mystic Wim Kol came up with another depiction of his Dike Temple, this one inspired by Piranesi. Now there were 6 Dike Mystic paintings and only 5 homehaus works.