The Benikje Series – the art, the poetry.

The beginning of Benikje started in September 2017. I struggled picking up my brush after a decade or so not creating much in the way of artwork, I needed to resurrect myself. The work I made before did not fit into my world any more let alone the outside world and my present situation. lost in contemplation of what art means and stands for in this age were everything seems to of been done. The thousands of images presented and absorbed by techno social media new age humans every day and cast away in seconds. Is it worth as an artist to spend dozens of hours creating one single image?

These kinds of questions arose for me out of the old stagnant art paradigm, were in artists must die before they become famous, that the art dealers’ rule and determine the artists fate, that the artist must create something never done before, art critics make or break, judges determine who is best and a new art style rule.

Mulling over these kinds of questions and totally over-thinking everything in the universe, I ended up with nothing, blank, feeling only like an empty black shadow man of my former artist self. Then one day, I cut that little shadow man out of black paper, glued him onto an unfinished painting of colour and low and behold he came alive. I gave all my burdens and troubles to my little shadow on paper. Before long, the little shadow started to reflect colour in fact started to reflect my world and the world outside as well. Released from the shadow, freedom was born.

My little shadow man took on a new identity and became ‘Benikje’. The name derives from three Dutch words, Am I You.  We are now pretty good buddies and have a lot of fun.

Ps. About the question, ‘is it worth spending hours on creating an image’ We say YES. There is great healing in the process of creating. And there is great healing in absorbing the wonderful Universe we live in. The choice is all yours.