Alice with the Key
To kiss or not to kiss?
Artwork information
- oil on canvas
- 80 × 120 cm
- 2016
Possibilities
Story
Where love became pain
This painting grew out of unrequited love. The same love that had previously inspired Snow White, Maleficent and Capricorn. What could not be shared turned into pain. And here, that pain took shape in paint.
A love that blooms in silence
The lily symbolises my platonic love, attraction and longing. It blooms in silence, because this love lived mostly in my own heart and mind.
As Alice gradually took shape, I secretly hoped that my love would slowly wither. Perhaps it simply needed to disappear among the paint and the flowers.
The key to my heart
Countless keys float in the background. Some simple, others ornate and refined. Between them float keyholes, waiting for their other half.
Which key will find the right keyhole?
Does it fit straight away, or do you need to try a few others first? Does it slip in easily, or does it take a little turning, wiggling and adjusting before the key will go in?
Perhaps love, too, is sometimes a search for the right key.
The golden key
Among all those keys, one is different: a golden key, decorated with the letter R.
To me, that R stands for le Roi, the king of my imagination. Or for the Royal Key: the one who holds the royal key to my heart.
Those are the fairy-tale explanations I also shared with visitors to my exhibitions.
But there was another reason. One that only those closest to me knew.
R is also the first letter of his name.
Lost in a blue dream
The blue colour palette is a playful nod to Alice from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. It evokes that strange feeling of being lost in a dream that never truly became reality.
A dream in which you keep searching, even though somewhere deep down you know the key may never fit the right lock.
Soft fur
This work also challenged me technically. For the first time, I painted fur in oils.
What initially kept turning into a smudged patch instead of soft hairs finally gained texture when I applied the paint thickly and scratched the fur into it.
I later continued that search for texture in Dark (In)Side, where the Queen’s fur became softer and fluffier.
The kiss that lingered in the air
In the foreground sits a rabbit, ready to give a kiss… or receive one.
A little nod to Shakespeare’s To be or not to be?
Or in my case:
To kiss or not to kiss?
A quiet uncertainty… and at the same time, the hope that one day he would kiss me.