paintings, drawings, graphics

KORF-magazine, January 2010

In Austria we stayed near the ‘Breitach’, a clear stream which runs through stones.

Breitach (near Mittelberg, Austria), 2009, 23x19,6 cm

Before, we were on the top of a mountain in Switzerland. You can see the sunrise brush past the mountainside.

Evening light, Rosswald (Switzerland), 2005, 16,9x25,4 cm

'Why do yo like to paint?'

By Kees den Braber

'This question won't sound strange to you. What's the reason why you paint? All those lines on a piece of paper... what a fuss...!
I'm going to try to give answers to these questions.

In former articles I quoted a number of artists.
It were statements of artists who paint abstract paintings.
My abstract works changed my name in Kees Kelly (so named by our KORF-president). No, not after princess Grace Kelly, but after Ellsworth Kelly, Hard-Edge-artist, who painted paintings like Blue Curve (1982).
Gradually I got stuck painting abstract works.
The reasons for that were of visual kinds, but there were also other reasons. I don’t want to mention them all, but one of the reasons was that I started to miss painting from observation.
I was really surprised, because my abstract works were known as keen observations. I really missed the fun looking at something and painting it in a drawing or painting.
Just drawing the things you see, in clear imagery. Just with a HB-pencil. That's the challenge!
We were with our family on the coast near Vrouwenpolder and I tried to draw what I saw.

Together with some pupils of mine I attended a concert in De Doelen. We sat in the front and had a good sight at the people playing the stringed instruments.

Between the violinists I saw just a trumpeter. One of my pupils whispered to me: ‘why are you doing this’? What else could I answer than: ‘because I like it’ !? I hope you can see that I really have fun watching and drawing, like in the still life of the pears.

They look like two lazy seals which are talking to each other. While two other seals curiously look over the rim of the box.

But there are also other things to do than having fun.
The artist must never feel better than the viewers.
On the contrary, let the artist be subservient to others!
A nice occasion was the rebuilding of our church.

There was a market held to raise money for rebuilding the church. I made my contribution by drawing people for free. People could decide themselves how much they paid for the drawing. In the end, all the money I had ‘earned’ was given to the church purse.

Why do you like to paint? Most of the time I reply like: because I can’t help it. And that’s the truth. But, when I open the Bible, I learn that there’s a dangerous side on it. Is it good when you just can’t stop doing things?
Why do you like to paint? Because there’s still so much beauty to be found in God’s creation. It all just asks me to paint it. Like a sort of a reply. An imperfect reply.
Why do you like to paint? Not because it is easy….but because the things I see just challenge me!