After that I was finished with city-views, as I sensed an ever-growing tendency to paint things on a scale of 1:1. This seems nothing out of the ordinary, but if one checks other realistic or figurative paintings, it becomes clear that many are slightly smaller or slightly bigger than reality, or rather a lot smaller or bigger. A scale of 1:1 is apparently not very obvious. However, to me it seemed a perfectly logical criterion to get to the bottom of reality.

Pillbox with small spoon 1 - 4

An important step was made in 1980, when I painted one particular still life as seen from three different sides. And a next one from four sides. And from eight. I discovered that reality wasn’t as unequivocal (one-sided) as it seemed. One blue box, as seen from four sides, produced four different shades of blue.

Round 1981 I discovered the paradox that exists between the image and reality, and I started out on a small series of so-called Destroyed Canvasses: Paintings that were cut to pieces so one could see the frame on which the canvas was stretched. But all this wasn’t real, only painted very precisely.

Destroyed still life 1: Corpus delicti, 1983, o/c, 50x60 cm.

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