Inner Landscapes, chapter 16 from The Works

2004–2006

After The Odyssey, the journey continued.

But the story disappeared.

What remained was the landscape itself.

Not as a place in the world,

but as a place within.

These were years in which my life became smaller in scale.

My studio had become a bedroom.

When the house finally grew quiet, I painted.

With three young children, uninterrupted hours in the studio had become a rarity. The monumental canvases gradually gave way to smaller paintings.

Not because my ambitions had become smaller.

But because my life had changed.

The smaller format demanded something different.

It asked for concentration.

For stillness.

For attention.

Each painting searched for the essence of a landscape.

How little is needed before a landscape begins to exist?

A mountain.

A horizon.

A passage of water.

A single gesture.

The paintings became increasingly condensed.

Each one was an attempt to distil an inner world into its simplest form.

What had once required a large canvas now had to exist within the space of a small painting.

Over time, I realised that I was not searching for new landscapes.

I was returning to the same landscape, again and again.

Each painting was another attempt to see it more clearly.

Or perhaps to see myself more clearly within it.

In 2006, this exploration took on a new form.

I created approximately 250 small paintings for the Dutch Ministry of the Interior.

Installed together, they formed a large field of individual landscapes.

Civil servants attending leadership programmes encountered the work throughout their stay. At the end of each programme, every participant was invited to choose one painting and take it home.

The installation slowly disappeared.

Not because it ended.

But because every landscape continued its journey with someone else.

Looking back, I realise how much this project changed my understanding of painting.

A work did not have to remain together to stay whole.

It could also become complete by dispersing.

Looking back, I realise that these small paintings were never studies for larger works.

They were complete worlds in themselves.

Selected Projects (2004–2006)

2004

• Inner Landscapes

2005

• Development of the Inner Landscapes series

2006

• Inner Landscapes — installation of approximately 250 paintings for the Dutch Ministry of the Interior

• Unknown Territory

• As Above, So Below (Ministry of the Interior)

"I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.I may not complete this last one,but I give myself to it."

Rainer Maria Rilke

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Marcel Proust

"We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding