Dace Sietina

Usually I just show my own stuff here, but this time I want to introduce you to the art of
Dace Sietina. I discovered her work when I was a judge in the Benelux Comic Contest,
the comic she sent in was my personal favorite (unfortunately the other judges didn't agree).
So I was excited when I heard she had an exhibition at gallery/comicstore Lambiek.

I have a feeling that people will either hate her work or absolutely love it, and personally I fall in
the 2nd category. ;-) It's weird and fresh, sometimes even gets close to being ugly but still manages
to stay interesting and entertaining. Er... sorry, I'm not an art critic!
Anyway, I loved it and for the first time in my life I felt like buying something, BUT...

The big one was her latest, most expensive and personal favorite work, inspired by Basquiat.
It was my personal favorite as well, but unfortunately Arthur Griffioen beat me to buying it! :-(
But the good news is that Arthur runs the artprint company Griffioen Grafiek and plans to turn
the drawing into an exclusive print! (And he promised me one, yeah! :-D )
The smaller drawing at the left is based upon the sign that hangs from the Lambiek store.

But that didn't stop me from buying; I bought this one with the 'rabbit' figures! Dace poses next to it.
And then I also bought the smaller drawing at the far right from the first pic. Seriously, this is the first
time ever that I bought art! But as you can see I'm already getting inspired by Dace's work!

So go visit her exhibtion in Amsterdam, it's still there for 1,5 months!
(but if you want to buy something you better hurry up! Prices vary between €50 and €500)
And this is Dace Sietina's website.
Oh and did you know that Griffioen Grafiek made a print of my work too, many, many years ago?
Somehow it's still not sold out, and they're just €25 a piece (and they're huuuuge!)
(see here at the year 1998)

Berlin day 2

First day in Berlin! Edith and I met up with Yasmin, Robin and Robert and went into town
for breakfast. The festival started the next day, but the exhibitions were already open.


Drawing with inspiration from the exhibtions.

Some photos I took the first day.

Comic festival

My excuses for the people who went to the Stripdagen at Sunday to have a book signed by me;
I was already a bit ill on Saturday and it got worse, so I decided on Sunday to stay home.

But Saturday was a really busy day because, besides signing, there was:

The BNS Stripverwachting exhibition! This is at the start, and Roel Venderbosch is
still adjusting some panels.


...And then there was the BNS auction!

Kees de Boer did the presentation, a lot of people came to bid.

Here are all the things you could bid on, and the end result: More than €2000!
The money will be used to print a second edition of the BNS comic newspaper, that will
be distributed for free to promote comics in Holland.

Mooi is that! exhibition

Last weekend the exhibition of 'Mooi is dat!' opened in the OBA, the public library of Amsterdam.
'Mooi is dat!' ('That's beautiful!') is a collection of comics from 57 comicartists, who all boiled down
a book from the Dutch and Vlamish literature to a 1 page comic. I participated as well.

The exhibition looks really amazing! All the pages are on display plus some original drawings...

... like the original box and sketches of my 'comic' page!

The OBA is open every day from 10:00 am to 10:00 pm and entrance is free! The exhibition runs
until the 15th of January. Click here to read more about the exhibition (in Dutch).

The book is published by de Vliegende Hollander and available online and in book- and comic stores for €35.
And believe me, it's worth it! ;-)

Looking back at the exhibition

It's already been a week since our exhibition in Haarlem, showing drawings and comics
of far away places. It was a lot of work to organise it all but definitely worth it!

The exhibition turned out really great, even nicer than I had been hoping for.
It's amazing what you can do with a small budget and a lot of creativity.
I also want to thank Mark Hendriks, Ron Schuijt, Albo Helm, Stephan Brusche,
Jeroen Jager, and of course Fjodor Buis from Studio Burgwal who opened up
his atelier for the show.

On the first day we already sold all our copies of my new book 'Donker'
but Godzilla guarded the other books.

Oh, and here's a nice review about 'Donker' in the Belgian newspaper
'de Standaard' (in Dutch).

Colour suitcase

Yeah for colour printing! Our exhibition flyers are ready!
Come take a look at our exhibtion, only during the next weekend!
(see previous posts)

Invitation

The digital version of the flyer

You're all invited to our groupsexhibition of drawings from far away places
like Japan, Micronesia, Indonesia, the U.S. and South Africa!
It's only during two days; 5+6th of June and it's in Haarlem (the Netherlands)
during the bi-annual comicfestival there. Admission is free.
Some more information about the exhibition here (but in Dutch).
We'll also be there to sell and sign our books, and I just heard from my publisher that
my latest book 'Donker', a traveldiary about South Africa, came back from the printer!
(I'm anxiously awaiting the mailman)

Suitcase flyer

A black-and-white dummy of my flyer.

The flyer is shaped like a suitcase, you can fold it open like a real suitcase and
see all the information packed inside. The exhibition contains drawings of far
away places (I'll exhibit my traveldiaries) and is called 'Meanwhile somewhere else'.
I finished it today, now to find a good copyservice to have it printed (too bad we
can't afford real printing).

Snippendaal

On my way to the station I passed this house made from cheap nylon bags.

I have to admit I wasn't that impressed because I once saw a big art exhibition
in Hong Kong completely dedicated to them.
But it was fun to suddenly run into an art project, and this turned out to be a
fun project as well: The house is actually a 'hotel' where guests can stay one
night under the condition that they somehow contribute to the installation.

I loved the idea of a mini garden in a bag. But the sign puzzled me.
'Snippendaaltuin' might look dutch but is completely gibberish.

It turned out that this was the contribution of two guests from New York,
who were hoping that 'snippendaaltuin' was correct dutch for herb garden.
Alas no, that's 'kruidentuin', but if I had a snippendaaltuin I'd stick with the
name!
Here's the site of DUS architects, who set this up.