db Waterman creates art with -a story that touches people
- dbwaterman
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
In a world where art is becoming increasingly digital and even AI-generated, I like to stay true to my own way of working.
The way I create my paintings, with many layers , creates a lived-in character.
I want to make artworks that touch people or make them think about their living environment. Works of art with a story. My paintings may raise questions and confuse. Make you dream away or take you back to your youth.
I hate trends, because, as the word says; this is something temporary. My artworks should not be short-lived but enduring stories with depth and humanity.
Timeless work, made with attention and a lot of love and patience. That is what I believe in.
People make the story
In my paintings, people always take center stage.
I want a viewer to wonder; What is this person doing there? What has he or she experienced? Why is it painted in black and white?
I often paint people in black and white, as if they were cut from an old photograph. This enhances the feeling of timelessness. Especially where the children are concerned .
I want to contrast past and present. The colorful 'now' with a black and white image of the past placed in it.
To indicate that children used to play outside much more.
Precisely because it does not evoke direct recognition, the viewer can put his or her own story into it.
And that, for me, is the most important thing about my art: it provides space for projection, memory and emotion.
Landscapes of memory
I make many landscapes in which I usually place one figure.
These are never realistic paintings that are precise depictions of a place.
They are often melancholy images that seem to float between dream and reality. Images that evoke a memory.
For example, a wide deserted beach with a little girl running.
A sunset where a woman stands alone at the water's edge.
These are not always happy paintings, but they are images that can touch you and raise questions. Images you can interpret and respond to yourself.
I regularly hear from visitors to my studio gallery that my artworks remind them of images from their youth. Sometimes something vague but instinctively very close.
These are images that everyone recognizes.
Mixed technique and weathered textures
To give my landscapes the weathered, dreamy textures I use a unique Mixed Media technique.
I have discovered, developed and refined this way of working myself over the past 12 years.
I always work with different layers on top of each other. Whereby I try to keep each layer partly visible for a depth effect.
The materials and techniques I use are a combination of posters, prints and print techniques, ink, acrylic paint, pastel crayons, painted pictures of people (whether or not photographed by myself).
This is what visually distinguishes my work. I create artworks with layers as if they were memories, with scratches, stains and imperfections.
Art as a mirror of our nostalgia
In our current world, where everything must move quickly, my paintings can offer a point of rest.
A moment of silence, rest, reflection and drifting off to a memory of the past.
My artworks evoke nostalgia and can take you back to a moment or place in the past. They offer an image for your own interpretation. And it doesn't have to match your memory exactly to still have meaning and touch you.
The overall atmosphere of a painting can be enough.
An invitation to look and feel
I am a Dutch Mixed Media artist living and working in Eindhoven. There I have a beautiful large studio gallery in the Klokgebouw, at Strijp-S, a former Philips industrial area.
Online through my website you can see all my artworks, but in my studio at Strijp-S everyone can come and see my work in real life.
Then the different layers and details in my work can be seen even better.
And I can explain a lot about the creative process and my story behind the artwork.
My paintings are not short-lived trends, but lasting images with a feeling - something that resonates with who you are, or where you come from.
So if you are looking for melancholic landscapes with character, that touch you, that say something about you, about times gone by, or the quiet feeling of a nostalgic childhood memory, then I invite you to come and have a look. Maybe you will discover something you knew all along, but had forgotten for a moment.
