The Fire and the Net
A painting series about the internet, virology, and ancestral memory.
A series of paintings made during the Covid-19 pandemic, between 2019 and 2020.
Fire in the Field
50 x 40 cm, Acrylic on Canvas
Painted in March 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
What began as a simple visit became something more complex: an unexpected lockdown in my ancestral village, Aarle-Rixtel.
Guardian
50 x 40 cm, Acrylic on Canvas, Deep Frame.
Painted in May 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
Born abroad, I found myself suddenly rooted in the soil of my lineage. Visceral history, memory, and land all at a time of global disconnect and distress.
Acknowlege
30 x 40 cm. Acrylic on Canvas.
Painted in May 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
Just like the microbiomes that we were trying to protect, the internet held our contagion and our connection, our presence and our pain. I began to paint what the internet felt like.
The Internet
80 x 100 cm, Acrylic on Canvas, Deep Frame.
Painted in June 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
I painted this space using the visual language I had developed during my Body Mapping project. However this time faces of ancestors (mine and other’s) began to appear. I imagined viruses as glowing forms. Figures emerged. Everything felt like it was on fire, but the fire was silent, lonely, confusing and cold.
I pushed colors to their highest saturation, they became my way to hold the worldwide pain of the moment.
Umbilical Transmissions
80 x 60 cm, Acrylic on Canvas
Painted in June 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
The internet looked like an organism inside out, sometimes with bodies in it suspended mid-air.
Data Exchange
50 x 40 x 3 cm, Acrylic on Canvas
Painted in August 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
Just like our bodies the internet carries our viruses and our protest, unknown transmissions, and global grief.
Gathering Information / On the Internet
80 x 60 cm, Acrylic on Canvas
Painted in March 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
While painting I realized that the web is as alive and complex as our bodies. Bursting like our networks of cells and delicate like our myelin sheaths.
Defender
50 x 40 cm. Acrylic on Canvas.
Painted in October 2020 in Berlin, Germany.
However, the internet, our only source of our connection, became a source of chaos, tumult, pressure and unsafety. The internet was a battleground and I yearned for the protection of prayers of my grandmother.
Your Grandmas Prayers are Still Protecting You
100 x 80 cm, Acrylic on Deep Canvas
Painted in March 2020 on my last day in Berlin
Surrounded by both the loudness of the internet and the silence of the village, I was nostalgic for memories I never experienced. The simplicity of the lives of my Brabantian ancestors. The ones van Gogh painted in their earthy colors. Perpetual dirt under their fingernails from tilling the soil.
Where were they? Somewhere inside the grooves of my brain it seemed.
Ancestor’s Eclipse
50 x 40 cm, Acrylic on Canvas
Painted in June 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
Moon Elder
50 x 40 cm, Acrylic on Canvas
Painted in August 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
“I wanted to convey the idea that these people, eating their potatoes by the light of their lamp, have dug the earth with the same hands they are putting in the dish… that they have earned their food honestly.”
Opa’s Vogels
100 x 80 cm. Acrylic on Deep Canvas.
Painted in April 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
“Brabant is still in my heart. I feel I am more myself here than anywhere.”
Perspective Shift II
80 x 60 cm. Acrylic on Canvas.
Painted in May 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
A fire raged, carried by the air outside, on the screens our homes, and in our very identity…
Perspective Shift IV
80 x 60 cm. Acrylic on Canvas.
Painted in May 2020 in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands.
…as I tried to paint what we could not touch.
