Give me beauty or give me death

Repainting classical works from the Golden Age – where do you start? Especially if you decide not to use colour. Niek loves a challenge. Here, the main challenge was the hare. The original is in colour and colour accounts for at least half of the impact. Depicting the woolliness of the animal was quite a feat. What Niek did, in the end, was cut up a brush until he could reproduce the texture of the coat.

Niek is inspired by both old and new art. He appropriates the pieces, strips them of colour and only works in black and white. In doing so, new pieces are created based on paintings by famous artists.

Jan Weenix, a former pupil of Rembrandt, painted exquisite still lifes with game. You can see hare, roe deer, swans and herons in his paintings. One of these paintings was used by Niek as a source of inspiration. 

Triptychs were commonly used in painting and often featured a Mary with Child or a Last Judgment. During church festivities, the hatches were folded open and the central representation unveiled. This must have been a kind of cinematic event for the public.