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| Address | Papendrechtstraat 50
Amsterdam, 1106 BR
Netherlands| Artist's Home Page | | | Email Address | | |
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 I'm a self-taught artist, I actually never used to call myself that way. I started drawing when I was about 14-15 years old and it was a natural process to me. The house where I grew up had a small side-chamber, and I usually sat there with my paper, pencils and stuff. Nobody ever told me it was rather strange that, while others were watching tv, or playing some game, I preferred to just sit there and draw. I can still remember that it came as a kind of shock to me to discover that not everybody was doing something like that.
Most of the pieces of that period are gone. The earliest drawings date from 1974 and 1975, but there are only a few of them left. Anyway, I'm not all that unhappy about that. I feel that the early years served as a trial-and-error period, to find out what exactly my own style should be.
Next came a period of marriage, and children, in which I greatly neglected my pens-and-paper. The necessity to earn money, the lack of time and a place of my own, and gradually the strains of un unsuccessful marriage, they all played a part in the question why there are no drawings in the period 1977-1997. Whatever I produced in that time I threw away. To me it was part of a bad period and I felt it didn't deserve a place amongst the rest of my work.
Starting from 1997, when I was divorced and things got a little quieter, I felt comfortable again with the work I produced. The drawings I have made since then truly reflect my own style. I call it 'abstract', although in quite a few cases it definitely has a sense of organic/biological structure. Not all too strange if you know that I studied Biology for a few years (as a second college besides my primary interest, Mathematics) and I can really be impressed by some microscopical images of cell structures. There are some very striking descriptions of my work, made by people in my guestbook, in which I can definitely find myself:
“I loved the way your drawings filled in space and had a texture. It reminded me in a way of looking at quilts with lots of patterns, or at nature close up - things under a microscope, or just noticing a pleasing pattern here or there.”
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“Your art is very interesting. Methodical, primitive with a flowing beauty that draws me in.”
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“Being a figurative artist I tend to find most abstract art vapid and incapable of holding my attention. But I found myself liking your art the way I enjoy looking at the glyphs on the side of a Mayan temple.”
As far as expositions, or selling my work: I have never really believed enough in myself to take any steps in that direction. It is only recently that I have decided to seriously pursue a life in which my drawing takes a central place. That's also the reason why I consider myself an emerging artist, despite the fact that my drawing-history goes back over 30 years.
If you're in the mood: listen to this:
Tangerine Dream - Death Of A Nightingale (Turn Of The Tides)
Billy Joel - And so it goes (Storm Front)
Scorpions - A Moment In A Million Years (Eye II Eye)
Scorpions - Are You The One (Pure Instinct) |
Marcel Brekelmans is currently displaying artwork in the following categories...
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| Page Last Updated
Mar 24, 2004 |
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