Roelandt

The art of creating reality and emotion.

​

As a sculptor when you start your project with just a stone, there comes a point where you find yourself petting your freshly carved stone dog. And when you pick up that block of stone and make sure not to touch the eyes and nose because the dog wouldn't like that, you know you have reached a point where your mind has decided that this is more dog than stone.

As a musician you learn to play every note perfectly as written on paper. However, the notes themselves contains no emotions, it is the task of the musician to find and add emotion to the notes and make music.

I, as a painter, explore the boundaries between pictures and people. When does a painting become more person than picture? At what point does your brain makes this flip and can you actually see the pain or joy in the eyes of this person? When do you find yourself sympathizing with the hard or easy life they must have had?

How does any of this work? How does your brain define and recognize emotions? ​This is what makes this hobby so interesting. When does the brain accept something as real?

If you think you finally managed to understand and recognise emotions, I found myselves with the next obstacle; how do you actually render it on canvas? 

It is an endless search between facial expression, facial recognition and painting technique.

​At this moment, I am painting the series “Beautiful people” a collection of 100 “tronies” a Dutch expression for portrait studies with a so-called character heads.

​A series that shows how unique, precious and full of emotion people are.