Looking back on 2007

Erica Scheper
Sep 12
2 min read

In 2007, I continued working on the series of paintings featuring caravans and on its successor, the series featuring newly built houses. For these paintings, I first took photographs in all kinds of neighbourhoods. Among others, in Winsum, in a neighbourhood that was still under construction. There, I felt like I was walking around in a film by Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam, known for his films that paint a picture of the Netherlands that is both recognisable and alienating: inhabited houses with bare gardens, in a bare street surrounded by a bare plain where you would be surrounded by construction machinery for years to come.

The houses in this first painting are derived from those in the Ruischerwaard neighbourhood in Groningen. I titled this work “Klikodag” (wheelie bin Day). If you look closely, you can see the plants placed nicely in pairs in the window.

Later that year, I started another new series, featuring ballet girls. In this series, too, I was interested in uniformity, similarity in form, and universality; as if all girls want the same thing and think pink is the most beautiful colour.