Meeting Pascal Rabaté

 

Drawings made for readers

 

Old work: The Bloodless

A picture book I drew as a young man around 2000 and self-published in a run of 4 copies a few years later. I couldn't find a publisher for this surreal, bleak tale about - I guess - the blurring of the lines between capitalism and socialism in our times. It did end up as a short story in the anthology Wat Fred niet wist (2004).

 

The story shares some themes with the movie Goodbye Lenin (2003), as was pointed out by people when the story appeared in 2004. My protagonist and his mother haven't left their appartment since the Berlin wall fell and fill their days by reading old communist newspapers and him dressing up as his father. I guess the feeling of 'ostalgia' was in the air then.

 

 

I was immodestly and foolishly under the spell of people like Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Joseph Lada, Picasso and obviously Frans Masereel. I was living in Peshawar, Pakistan when I made this as my girlfriend Tessa worked with Afghan refugees there. I remember bringing the art along on a long trip we did in Pakistan and India and me drawing further panels in the night trains we took. I got the idea for the drawing above at an art show in a church in Goa that warned against the abuse of alcohol. I'd like to see that Goan picture again sometime.

Paul Verhoeven

A new cover for film magazine Schokkend Nieuws. A portrait of our favorite Dutch director.

 

 

Some old work: Cloud, Castle, Lake

Some drawings from my first attempt at a long story, done while still studying at the art academy in Rotterdam in 1995 or 1996. Done as an exercise as of course I didn't have any permission to rework this Nabokov tale. It is interesting for me to see again today as I realize I've been somewhat consistent in my foolish artistic ambitions. I was mainly reading Moebius, Richard Corben, old Creepy's and Eerie's at the time (and I still do) but for my own work I choose to get entangled in my love for literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I drew the 15 pages with reed pen and Indian ink. It appeared photocopied in the amateur comic magazine Incognito and that was that!

Bumpy road ahead!

 

Leslie

A creature I've called Leslie. I drew the thing using the Balinese mask I found at the thrift a few months ago. Illustration for filmmagazine Schokkend Nieuws for a program with Indonesian horror movies at the Imagine filmfestival 2021.

Stad van Klei reprinted on the more appropriate size of my last albums, published by Scratch books.