Gosse van der Leij

Als je geen goede vriend van Gosse bent, kun je niet zo goed inschatten hoe gelijkend zijn werken als portretten zijn, maar misschien is dat niet het belangrijkste. Zijn werken zijn heel eenvoudig. In een paar schilderijen is de achtergrond in een grondkleur geschilderd en is het interieur er in donkere lijnen bovenop geschilderd, terwijl de figuren uitgespaard lijken te zijn. Dat nadrukkelijk platte van zijn werk is ook aandoenlijk. Je realiseert je dat je leven niet uniek is en dat dit niet alleen de buren van Gosse van der Leij zijn, maar dat vrijwel iedereen buren heeft, die misschien ook wel in een huis met keurige  tuin wonen, dat je zelf misschien ook wel niet zo heel zelfverzekerde puber was en dat we allemaal ouders hebben, die langzamerhand  steeds ouder worden. ”

–  Frans van Tartwijk 

 

 

Gosse werd geïnterviewd door Giovanna Calainho voor onze artikelenreeks Decomposing/Recomposing: articles for growing tomorrows seeds

(alleen Engels beschikbaar)

What is contemporary art if not a mirror reflecting social and modern issues? Attentive to the main criticisms of contemporary art, Gosse van der Leij thrives on impartially connecting his paintings with our current reality, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions. In this interview, the artist shares insights into his creative process and the inspirations behind his work. 

 

Can you tell me what are you currently working on?

G: “I’m currently working on a series of paintings inspired by ‘First Dates’ on television, so there are couples who have never seen each other before and meet up.  I find that quite fascinating. I like to be inspired by the media, what I read in newspapers and what I see on TV and this ‘First Dates’ is a sort of social phenomenon that’s quite interesting. It is like an assisted romance, because people who can’t find someone by themselves decide on going to a dating show. I think that’s something that’s happening today and it didn’t happen before and with all the social media. So, that’s what I’m working on at the moment. I have three or four paintings of couples and I want to finish those in a couple of weeks.”.

And how did you come up with the idea to do that? 

G: “Hmm, my wife always watches ‘First Dates’, and I find it very embarrassing that people get manoeuvred into situations where they have to tell everything about themselves when the whole of the Netherlands is watching. It’s a multimedia spectacle.  And I feel really embarrassed for them, although maybe they feel quite comfortable to take part. That’s why I got interested in it. Most of my subjects come from media or newspapers, something I read about or something I see. I think painting and art should be about current events. It should have some connection with what’s going on in the world, it shouldn’t be completely removed. It shouldn’t just be painting a flower or something like that, it should have some connotation with what’s going  on around you. So that’s why I try to find subject matter about topical things . 

It’s interesting that you put contemporary issues in your paintings. Sometimes we see most artists putting abstract things into their art. So it’s really interesting that you put social issues in your paintings.  

G: “Yes, you hear a lot of criticism about contemporary art that doesn’t involve itself enough with what’s going on in the world at the moment. Sometimes you have more artivist art that’s a sort of pamphlet or propaganda, but the criticism I read a lot about contemporary art is that it doesn’t concern itself enough with contemporary matters, such as political or social issues. I’ve taken that criticism to heart.”

But do you consider yourself a contemporary artist? 

G: “That’s not for me to decide, I think that’s for the people who see my work…It’s very difficult to be objective about yourself. You could say I’m a contemporary artist, and then somebody comes along and says ‘No, you’re not’, you know? I’d rather let other people decide for me that.”

Do you think that art, in general, is helpful for people to reflect on social issues and understand better what’s going on around the world?

G: “I think so, yes. Sometimes, I think that art becomes too overtly activist and therefore too one-dimensional. I prefer it when it’s open-ended.. You can see connections in the work but if it’s too strongly partisan , for example, the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, if you make art that is too biassed  you don’t give viewers much of a choice, do you? But if you are concerned about the issue of barbarity , if you try to raise that issue, it’s up to people to make up their own minds about who’s causing all of this. You want to raise this subject of brutal indiscriminate killing  and the need for peace negotiations.  I’ve got this painting that I haven’t finished yet and it’s  based on a photograph of a father  in Gaza who has recovered the body of his son from a bombed  building. But I call it ‘Father and Son’, and leave it to the viewer  to draw their own conclusions. If  you say ‘Palestinian man and his murdered son’, you set the tone for the person viewing the picture. I want it to be a condemnation of civilian deaths. If you leave the title inconclusive, you can view it more neutrally. Israelis have also been killed and it’s nearly impossible to view this conflict objectively.” 

But don’t you think that leaving the work too objective, people are not going to reflect on it? 

G: “There’s of course this danger. If you leave it too broad, people will just gloss over it of course.”

It’s a fine line, it’s hard to find that balance. 

G: “Yes. When the Second Worldwide War started, there were people making paintings like Alice Neel, an American artist  who made a painting of a demonstration in New York of people holding placards that read  ‘Nazis kill Jews’. That was an active statement against the war and the persecution of Jews. Of course, I could make more outspoken paintings against the ongoing violence in Gaza and Lebanon, but I want to occupy the middle ground although I sympathise with the Palestinians. I do have political views about that, but I don’t know if it’s conducive to the ongoing discussion for me  to talk too much about my sentiments. It’s so radical these days that you’re either for one side or the other, and there’s hardly any common ground for open debate anymore.”

Do you have a specific goal or message that you want to pass on through your work?  

G: “Well, some social awareness. I don’t want to pass on a too blatant message, though, I think everybody should discover  the work for themselves. You notice also with an exhibition that some people just pass by your work and don’t give it a second glance but other people suddenly stop, look, and then ask questions and you see they are hooked, that they’ve seen something in it. I don’t know if it’s really a message, but I am trying to put across some feeling of social awareness by observing the people around me, what’s going on in their minds, what issues they’re facing in their lives, that’s what fascinates me. In the past, a lot of my works were also about that. Like  some  years ago during the credit crisis when some  banks went bust, I made paintings about that. Sometimes I made  paintings of interviews I read in  the paper. There was this man, for example, who lost his job in New York, and he was sitting in the subway with his belongings. He’d been fired on the spot. He was working for a big New York investment bank and the next moment he was in the subway with his personal stuff in a box on his lap. So, to try to get the implications of that across, I thought it would be better to make a painting of  his own words describing his bewilderment.. So I made a word painting almost like a poem, with him saying ‘I was shattered, it was only eight thirty in the morning and there I was in the subway, no idea where I was going.’ So, those are things that interest me.”

Wow, I imagine this man must have been so desperate at that moment…Do you think that you also try to pass people’s feelings in your works?

G: “In that particular case, this man was desperate, dazed, and confused. It was so nicely worded in the quote, I thought ‘Well, I’m just going to paint his words on the canvas’. It conveys his uncertainty much better than  making a painting of the man in question.”

 

And can you describe a little bit about your creative process?

G: “Basically, I find a photo or a picture or I see something on TV that sticks with me and after a while, I think it might be interesting to research  this. The direct cause is usually a picture. So, with the picture as the basis, I start making sketches, or small preparatory paintings and I wonder  if this could be something or not. I decide on a composition and start painting. It’s quite an easy process, it’s not as if I have to analyse  things to death. It’s mainly that something catches your eye and you think ‘Hey, I’m going to do something with that’.”

 What motivates you to continue doing your art day by day? 

G: “Well, I’m getting old by now. I see young artists with ambition, wanting to make a name for themselves  in the art world, see their work confirmed by critics, and represented by a gallery . I still have that ambition but it’s been somewhat dampened over the years. My work is basically therapy,  I’m doing it to keep myself sane. If I wasn’t doing it, I’d be pretty glum.. So, I still have the ambition to show my work. I’d really like for more people to see it but I’m not a networker and I don’t have contacts in the gallery world.  I heard recently that an alternative would be to rent your own gallery space for a few days in Amsterdam and arrange a big shebang with loads of publicity to attract the right public who want to buy your work.  I don’t know if I have the inclination or the energy to do that.  I really like making work and I get a tremendous kick when it conveys what I want it to convey. That’s really what keeps me going, this continuing act of making something and seeing how it turns out and how people react to it. But like I said, it’s more therapy than that. I have a driving ambition to be a successful artist.”

And what would you say it’s your favourite piece you have ever made? 

G: “Haha, that’s  very difficult. Well, sometimes I get rather sentimental and I think of the  group portraits I’ve made of my family, my wife and two kids. And I think, after I’m gone these paintings are still going to be here, and  maybe my son will hang them in his home. Haha. . But what gives me a lot of satisfaction is when a painting neatly expresses what I want to convey.  It could be  a portrait of somebody that’s  a very good likeness, or some social phenomenon  you want to highlight, it’s such a thrill if you succeed.  I don’t really have one favourite single painting. But a while ago I became really obsessed with what influencers were doing, you know. You have these influencers on social media that say ‘You should wear these clothes’, ‘You should use these cosmetics’, ‘You should do these exercises’ or ‘You should eat this food’, so I made this painting of a  girl from a picture in a magazine. It’s nothing extraordinary, but I had this sort of ‘anti-influencer’ text accompanying it, that says: ‘Jane is not wearing a vintage trench coat by Comme des Garçons…. Nor a blouse by Issey Miyake…etc’. I mean, it’s quite blunt but the point I was trying to make was: don’t follow all these influencers, you’re free to make up your own mind. I thought it worked quite well.. And the male version was this  guy I called Paul:  ‘Paul is not wearing a jacket by Anderson & Sheppard…He doesn’t study aerospace engineering etc. It’s a sort of complaint about how people act like sheep and are so easily influenced by what celebrities tell them to do. . There are a lot of paintings on my Instagram account 

that in hindsight I’m still quite pleased with. This one is about Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV)  and this painting is called ‘The Demagogue’. In 2014 he gave a speech in The Hague after the municipal elections  and asked his  audience if they wanted ‘more or less Moroccans’ in Holland. It’s  a very infamous speech. His audience responded by chanting ‘less, less’.  Wilders was eventually convicted of ‘group defamation’ in 2020.  At the last elections the PVV won the most votes and is now the most important party in the coalition government. It is evidence of how racist Holland has become. I like the painting because it’s a foreboding of what was to come.”

Can you tell me about your long term goals as an artist?

G: “Well, look at me. My long-term goal is to continue what I’m doing now. To arrange a good exhibition that combines  old and new work. When  you’ve been painting for a long time, you look back at all the work you’ve done before. Some of it, I think, is still relevant. So I’d like to have an exhibition to show how old work relates to  new paintings. But I don’t know if it’s commercially viable.  There are few galleries anymore. Most artists show their work online. Instagram for me is a lifeline, it’s some sort of confirmation that what I make is appreciated or found worthwhile. But then again is it really anything to go by? Collecting likes on Instagram?  Wait and see, someday I’ll  have a gallery show with a fine selection of my paintings and lots of people in attendance”

And when you organise  an exhibition, do you divide your works according to a certain theme or do you mostly just display all your work with unique topics? 

G: “The subject that connects all my work is people. It’s always about people, so I don’t have paintings of landscapes. The basic premise of my painting is to show people. Portraits, people interacting with each other, couples, group portraits. So if I had an exhibition, ‘people’ would be the interconnecting theme.  It shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with a catchy title for an exhibition.”