Rijnmond
– Imagining the future
Last month I worked on the Maasvlakte,
so I had to drive west along the industries of Botlek and Europoort every
morning. What I particularly noticed was
the green look of it after coming in the Europoort section. Trees, grass,
bushes everywhere – and industry of course. Somehow I see the nature parts
first.
Taking that road every day, I started
imagining: it’s already green, what will happen when there is no more oil to
process and these industries will be abandoned?
Of course it helps that many chimneys already
have a rusted look, and much of the other industry as well. So a bit more rust,
a bit more decay and lots of extra green.
I wanted to paint that!
Things like this have been done
before, but never my way.
That meant looking well at the oil
plants – and still driving safely - remembering how it looks now and picking out
the structures that I think interesting.
All that was combined to create an
imaginary oil plant somewhere in the area. For my composition I did some
thinking. I could have chosen between horizontal and vertical but that seemed a
bit too obvious to me. There had to be a curve somewhere and that can be done
with a thing called ‘cantilever composition’
The vertical elements are still there
and the element of desertion too; that was to be my painting.
The buildings are decayed and rusty of
course, so I needed to work with more details than I usually do. I still wanted
to add some ‘haziness’ which is almost always present in the Rijnmond area, due
to the influence of sea, sand and blowing wind.
I am really satisfied with the result
of my imagination combined with my painting efforts. Maybe I will do some more
paintings on this theme.
More information about this
watercolour (size, colours and paper used) can be found on
www.jannekesatelier.co.nr
