Victory Boogie Woogie 2015

You see a panel of underlayment/ wood in layers with on it the portraits of the Kouachi brothers, the brothers that did the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. In the end , after their flight, they were shot dead. On the panel cels have been sketched and some of them have been carved out in a relief. The faces of the men have been carved and split in the surface.

In this work you see some similarities in image. The black lines of the cells repeat in the black lines in the faces of the men, thought they are round in the cells and straight in the faces. Underneath the porcelain layer of the faces is black-firing clay that shows itself in the carves. The cells have symbolic value. We talk of terrorist cells, IS cells. As a society we can look on all people of cells. These young man that turn into terrorists are, in a way, cells of our own tissue, something in our society that is working against us. And there is the difference between idea (sketch) and reality (form). What is the relation between reality and idea. How come some ideas become reality and some don't.

The title of the work refers to the painting of Mondriaan, Victory Boogie Woogie. Whose victory are we talking about, the one of the men that gave France and Europe a huge scare, or the victory of the state that killed these terrorists or the victory of the ideas of the terrorist movement that overthrows our legal system by showing no mercy or rights to these young men but kills them instantly just like IS does. Who are the heroes in this story, who claims the victory. The Boogie Woogie is quite cynical. In this dance of life, what is the best way to make it work together. What is paradise when we refuse to make refugees a home. What is paradise, this place ruled by rules claimed to be made by god or the place ruled by economy. When I was young I did consider quite seriously to become a nun, go into a sacred life. So I do understand the longing for a better world, a divine world.