The Odyssey, chapter 15 from The Works

2003

After years in which painting had quietly merged with everyday life, it returned with unexpected clarity.

In 2003, I was invited to create a series of fourteen paintings for a theatrical interpretation of The Odyssey, based on a text by the Dutch actor and writer Helmert Woudenberg.

The paintings were never intended as illustrations of Homer's epic.

Instead, they became a landscape through which the story could unfold.

During each performance, the audience moved through the exhibition together with an actor. Stopping before each painting, he narrated the next episode of Odysseus' journey. Image, spoken word and movement became inseparable.

The project travelled to several remarkable locations, including Schokland, the Batavia Museum and the Spanish Governor's Palace in Maastricht. Each place transformed the experience. The paintings remained the same, yet every setting gave the journey a different rhythm.

Looking back, I realise that something fundamental changed in my work.

The paintings used the journey of Odysseus as a point of departure for another kind of voyage.

The sea became an inner landscape.

The cliffs became thresholds.

The islands became states of mind.

Narrative slowly gave way to atmosphere.

For the first time, landscape itself became the protagonist.

The visible world became a vessel for an invisible one.

Looking back now, I recognise this series as the beginning of a new direction.

Without fully realising it, I had begun painting the spaces we travel through within ourselves.

Selected Projects (2003)

• The Odyssey — fourteen paintings created for the theatrical production based on Helmert Woudenberg's text

• Touring exhibitions including Schokland, the Batavia Museum and the Spanish Governor's Palace, Maastricht, etc.