„Plateau“

When I visited Paris, last winter, I was captured by the way urban youngsters were playing on their skateboards, as if the city was theirs. The sun casts it's shadows on them from a low angle, creating strong contrasts in light and dark. I took a photograph, and combined it in my computer with a photograph I took of people walking across the square in front of Le Centre Pompidou, the Georges Pompidou National Art and Culture Centre in the district Les Halles Beaubourg. I painted it in black & white, with a little bit of blue, to match the cold weather and the bright sunlight of that day. The painting is painted with oilpaint, and it has a big, monumental size. The people that are depicted have little detail, they are more like silhouettes. That way they become more anonymous and universal. The people walking the square are smaller than the ones on their skateboards. The last ones inhabit the place, while the others are just passing by. In that way they are somewhat meaningless.