The Experiment
The Experiment
I started this series in 2022: 370 years after the first settlers of the Dutch East Indian Company set foot on the South African continent to establish a halfway station between Europe and India.
The Suez channel did not exist and setting sail for India to buy spices, rice, tea, silks and other fabrics, took months one-way. So Dutch East Indian Company (in Afrikaans: H.O.I.K) permission to establish trade with various peoples via the southern tip of Africa enroute to Asia. In 1602 this Company became the first chartered stock company amalgamating various Dutch companies to form the United East Indian Company (in Afrikaans V.O.C.). and having monopoly granted by the government of the Netherlands, in this trade route for 22 years.
As a descendant of the settlers in the Cape of Good Hope I often feel more like a by-product as a result, than a proud inheritor of traditions, language etc. What started off as a “let’s see how it goes” ended in a conglomerate of various settling nations forming what we now refer to as the “Afrikaner”. We, the end-result of this 370+ year old mixed experiment are feisty, opinionated, hard headed, common, self-assured, stubborn, individualistic, (did I say stubborn?) have to listen to a lot of opinions from people who do not understand history or just could care less about getting along and living with fellow peoples put together at the same place at the same point in time – just moving forward from there.
This in turn leads to first: feelings of isolation then, self-doubt but ultimately a frustrated angriness at my great-great-great grandfathers leaving us in this stew…
In this series I will try to: ask questions; provoke; deliver opinions; ruffle some feathers, but purely from a personal point of view.
Paintings are done on round or oval stretched canvas to resemble delft plates brought in by the V.O.C. and used by the elect elite that resided in the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century and marked with the logo of the V.O.C.
Canvases are prepared as per usual. I then use a layer of thick white oil paint and while still wet, transfer images associated with Dutch, Cape-Dutch and traditional delft porcelain by scratching them into the paint. Then wait for it to dry, before painting the rest of the theme in blue that in the end-result, will resemble a delft plate on the wall, but upon further close-up inspection, reveals the deeper meaning obtained by symbolism.
R1000,00