Portret Saskia Noort

A portret of the Dutch thriller author Saskia Noort. Made for the
SBS6 television serie Villa Morero.

NRC Handelsblad - illustration

Illustration accompanying an article by Marc Chavannes about the brilliant chef of an excellent but sleepy restaurant in the south of France. Spread in the journal NRC Handelsblad.

Dostojevski

Illustration for an article in de Academische Boekengids (how modern academics reclaim Dostojevski's work as orthodox Christian legacy).

Stanley Kubrick and Patrick Mcgoohan for filmmagazine Schokkend Nieuws.

For an article in the Academische boekengids (Academic book review) about how the judicial system legitimized the invasion of Iraq as well as the methods of interrogation used in the "war on terror."

Exhibition

An impression of two walls of the gallery in Haarlem, Horizontaalvertikaal, where we showed panels from Stad van Klei, sketches and a lot of weird and wonderful items found in Cairo. There where many vintage film posters, film flyers, film clips and stills from classic to obscure Egyptian movies. Links were explained between them and Stad van Klei as there are a lot of references to be found in the book.

Ciudad de Barro

I just saw the Spanish edition of Stad van Klei, published by Sins Entido and with an introduction by Guillermo Altares, an editor for the newspaper El Pais.

It looks great thanks to Manuel Ponce Contreras (who took the above picture).

Exhibition during the comic festival in Haarlem on 2 & 3 June. Opening will be on friday the first, 7 PM. Hope to see you there!

La Chute de Maison Usher and Cineville

An illustration for filmmagazine Schokkend Nieuws about a screening of Jean Epstein's La Chute de Maison Usher. This amazing silent movie from 1928 is being shown with live music. The other painting was done for a new monthly horrorshow Cineville in Cinema De Uitkijk.

L’Univers expliqué à mes petits-enfants

Cover for the Dutch translation of the book by Hubert Reeves.
Het universum uitgelegd aan mijn kleinkinderen is published
by Thomas Rap.

Academic book review

Illustration accompanying an article about various researches looking into the "self"

Sketches 2

These are pictures I painted to visualize a story that has been shimmering in my head for some years. The idea came up in a correspondence with my good Australian friend Thomas Muller. Initially there were just a few lines about this strange setting on a peculiar ship. There was no actual storyline. This setting proved very alluring to me as I've been wandering around on this ship in my head ever since. Now I'm writing down ideas to inject a time element into this frozen world and turn it into an actual story.

Sketches

 

Designs and sketches for a graphic novel. Unfortunately this project will not be realized. But I would like to use this more refrained style for another book, for which I have a couple of good ideas.

Sonallah Ibrahim

A feature illustration for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The portrayed writer is the Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim, one of the writers mentioned in the bookreview article on Egyptian dissident literature for which this illustration was made. Ibrahim is the writer of the phenomenal novel The Committee.

Halloween rave

Just a couple more days and its Halloween! Illustration
for an article about an upcoming Halloween rave party.

Brian Yuzna and Tom Six

Directors Brian Yuzna and Tom Six portrayed for a Dutch cult-film magazine. Dutchman Tom Six gained notoriety with his film The Human Centipede.

Here's Jack

A portrait on the occasion of Here's Jack, a program of Jack Nicholson's best films touring the Netherlands.

OUT NOW: Stad van Klei (City of Clay)

Out now! And available at Oog & Blik/de Bezige Bij; the graphic novel Stad van Klei (City of Clay). Go here to download a printable 300 dpi jpg of the cover.

Based on the Egyptian novel Over the Bridge by Mohamed El- Bisatie, this 136 page story was drawn in Cairo, Egypt where I have been living for the last couple of years.

The book follows the misadventures of civil servant Salem and his descent into madness when he starts labouring on an elaborate scheme that involves the creation of an entire imaginary town and its police force.

While personally collecting the invented town's security budget, Salem finds himself forced to write an endless amount of believable police reports in order to keep the invented town off the radar of his superiors. For this he starts to obsessively build a clay model of the town and it's citizens in his own living room.

Soon the imaginary and the real world fold into one when the town starts to reflect Egypt's corrupt and bureaucratic reality against Salem's will. Instead of earning Salem bonusses, the police force is cracking down on self inflicted security problems. Salem finds himself victimized by the merciless and corrupt police inspector he himself created.

Stad van Klei will be in bookstores in Holland and Belgium soon! Get one now!

 

                                   

Background Painting

A couple of years back I had a lot of fun working on an animated short directed by Sylvia Kristel, Topor et Moi. I had the chance then to try out some special effects animation and did a lot of background paintings for her. A sequel was contemplated, and I did some art for the pitch of that, like this painting of a ghostly backlot.

John Waters portret

This was suposed to be just a small editorial illustration for a film magazine, but the art sucked me in so I gave it a more laborous rendition. 

De Verzamelaar Verzameld (The Collector Collected)

Three pages from the story De Verzamelaar Verzameld (The Collector Collected). This 11 page horror-suspense story, done in pencil, dealing with pseudo-Freudian science, hypnotism and the pathology of collecting, was made for a Dutch horror anthology, to be edited by Erik Kriek, Luuk Bode and me. The anthology never came out but it did result in a handful of beautiful stories. Michiel de Jong, Erik Kriek and Hisko Hulsing all did some of their best work for the occasion. This story was eventually published in Zone 5300 magazine a while back.

Les Baxter and the Eastern Bunny

The music by film composer and exotica specialist Les Baxter has always been an obsession of mine. I guess his music, especially from the early sixties Edgar Allan Poe films featuring Vincent Price, became part of my fabric as I have always been addicted to them. Baxter's face is only known to the public  from a couple of publicity pictures from the fifties. So an article in the magazine Zone 3500 I did a free interpretation of his face and fused it unconciously with Vincent Price's features.

Next to Les Baxter is a portret of the Eastern Bunny at work. 

Graphic Novel: Stad van Klei (City of Clay)

At this very moment I'm adding the final touches to the graphic novel Stad van Klei (City of Clay), 130 pages. While living in Cairo, Egypt for the last 4 years, I naturally set out to work on a story that enabled me to use all the impressions and experiences I have in this huge Middle Eastern city. The graphic novel is based on the novel Al-Khaldiya (Over the Bidge) by the Egyptian writer Mohamed el-Bisatie. It's about a civil servant and his descent into madness when he starts labouring on an elaborate scheme that involves the creation of an entire imaginary town and its police force. The graphic novel will come out in januari 2011 in The Netherlands (Oog & Blik/De Bezige Bij).

Magazine headers for Schokkend Nieuws



I do a lot of art for the Dutch film magazine Schokkend Nieuws.

These are recurring headers for some of the magazines regular features

(Bizar Bazar, Kerkdijk's Dark Rooms, Lebbing's Inferno, Video Basta, DVD Shift).

Gouache on paper.