Artist

“A work is never necessarily finished, for he who made it is never complete, and the strength and ability he draws from it confer on him exactly the power to improve it, and so on. He draws from it what is needed to efface it and make it again.”

Paul Valéry

Seeing, looking, making

I make mainly large landscapes of the land here and the wad behind the dike, as I see and experience it. Faithful depiction is subordinate to the image. The more often I come there, the more I see. It is the same with plates: every plate calls up another. Some images are there in one go. Others take a year of working through until they have reached their final state.

Colour is an essential part of the work. I make my ink myself, with stand oil and pigments, so I can compose the colour exactly and decide how it behaves in line and in plane. I make what I call long inks: an ink that reads almost black in the line, but is full of colour on a plane.

An important aspect of printmaking, for me, is working with the turning of the image — working in reverse, and also the logic, the own rhythm, from sketch to plate to print. The time between those acts gives room for distance, for looking again. And sometimes, after the pull, back to the plate. Being able to keep working into a plate is a real privilege of printmaking.

Drypoint and modelling paste are both very direct, spontaneous techniques. The opposition of the slow process of printmaking with the speed of drawing with the paste makes a useful tension. I usually work zinc, and I cut the lines — sometimes standing with both feet on the plate — with all my force. The modelling paste with carborundum I lay with my hands, to set down sky and land. Making a plate is a physical event. Tangible. That is also what I look for in the finished print.

The edition side of printmaking has never interested me. The drypoint I use does not lend itself to it. After every pull I walk the lines again to open them. The pressure, often large, closes every line, and the warm soft line of the drypoint disappears. Besides, for every impression I mix the ink again, and often I choose another tone. The image gains nothing for me in the same repetition. The search interests me, not the reproducing. That gives the work another charge. Everything is aimed at one good pull. That one image has all the energy, and is not a picture of something — it is an image in itself.

Small prints

Beside the large work I always make smaller ones as well. They have their own dynamism. Sometimes they are a preliminary study, often they are not. They are more a kind of dialogue intérieure — inward experiments and thoughts that, also because of the format, are more intimate in nature.

Photopolymer

In January 2014 I started, together with Paul Meek, a research into photopolymer. We are both printmakers and photographers, and we complement each other. Years on I still work with photopolymer film on zinc — at Minerva, at the Grafisch Centrum, and now also at Vrijdag. With the film it always stays in an experimental stage, not only because the conditions keep changing, but because the experimental suits the material. You can draw easily, mess with the positive, work from a drawn positive. If you want a photographically perfect print, you do Toyobo. If you are interested in the ground between printmaking and photography, the film is very suitable. It invites discovery.

In November 2021 I went to Copenhagen for a masterclass with Henrik Bøegh at his Grafisk Eksperimentarium. A wonderful teacher, generous with his knowledge. He taught how to work the Toyobo plates — they hold the maximum of detail, with a lovely grain. The photopolymer film will never render the same detail. It is still dear to me.