Elvira van Bochove

ELVIRA VAN BOCHOVE  Transmitting through art

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Painting

We are mostly water

This human is the container and the water that feeds the earth. The water that she drank is floating in her eyes.  Tiny fishes enter through the straw and can be seen swimming there. The fishes are part of her body, that is their habitat. 

“We are mostly water”
Acylic on canvas – 100 x 100 cm

Available in high quality print

My bubbletea drinking daughter, who has these huge eyes was my model for the painting. At the time she kind of wanted to be a froggirl (she watches anime a lot). It is quiet easy to recognise her as a watercreature…

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Painting

She would rather turn to foam than kill him


The sea that once was her home is about to swallow the Little Mermaid, who is turning into foam. This is the consequence of the Prince loving someone else more then her. She could have saved herself by stabbing a dagger in his heart on the night of his marriage. But she loved him more than her own life and threw herself into the sea. Knowing that she would ultimately dissolve into it…
“She would rather turn to foam than kill him” is after “Ophelia” by John Everett Millais.

She would rather turn to foam than kill him     2020

acrylics on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

The Little Mermaid and her choices...

The classic fairytale by Hans Christiaan Andersen is the guiding principle for a series of paintings I am working on. The tragedy of her being a creature without much power to choose the life that she desires gives her little self-love. Using works from art history, I hilight emancipatory issues that are in the story.

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Painting

She traded her voice for a pair of legs

The Little Mermaid and her choices...

The classic fairytale by Hans Christiaan Andersen is the guiding principle for a series of paintings I am working on. The tragedy of her being a creature without much power to choose the life that she desires gives her little self-love. Using works from art history, I hilight emancipatory issues that are in the story.

She traded her voice for a pair of legs     2019 

acrylics on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

The painting shows the Little Mermaid after her visit to the Sea Witch. She is left in a lonely environment. The light emphasizes her new legs, where there used to be a fish tail. The road to a possible life with the Prince. For this she paid with her voice, an essential part of the being of a mermaid. She will never again be able to tell her Prince and the world who she is …
“She traded her voice for a pair of legs” is after Rembrandt’s “The Bather”.

Categories
Painting

Rotte stream

Letting the water flow. At first en plein air. It had been while, painting with cold fingers, sunshine and wind on my face!  The finishing part was done in my studio, to layer the rippling water, creating movement. At river the Rotte.

Rotte stream    2021  
acrylics on canvas, 100 x 100 cm    2000,-

Categories
Painting

The blue sky

Here is the world as we want to see it, pleasant and beautiful. Everything is good, the air is clear, the water is fresh and there is yellow-golden sunlight. But, below the surface is that which we would rather not see. The being in the water is asphyxiated.

Swimming and hunting, like sharks with a human body, we come across our own poison.

 

Acrylics are used as matt as possible, without medium, with gesso, zinc- and titaniumwhite. The yellow is partly oilpaint. This makes the sunlight the most intense colour in the painting.

The blue sky 
acrylics & oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm
€ 4000,-

Categories
Painting

Cormorant-fish

Part of the project “Every little bird sings as it is prized” from Het Vogelnest (Birdsnest, community initiative) for “400 years Synod of Dordrecht“.

Cormorant-fish, ode to Jacob Cats  
Mural in “Cormorant”street (Aalscholverstraat)
Trimetal Globaxane paint, 1177 x 930  cm

The Cormorant fish is a reference to the emblemata of Jacob Cats. This singing cormorant also has a fish tail, which refers to the ancient ties of the people of Dordrecht with the water.

It makes the tail into a kind of nest, in which the little chicks, drawn by the children of the Bird-district are sitting.

After the start of the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618 a comet was seen in the sky. Poet Jacob Cats (1577-1660) saw in this not an ominous messenger in turbulent times, as was the prevailing view of comets. According to him, it was a divine sign that disputes could be resolved in a new light.

This emblema tells us everyone has a place in a community. We all have a different background, with many similarities.

Chicks made by the neighbourhood kids
WebAsli
WebNada
WebMare
WebJulia
WebJo-enna
WebGeisha
WebFilip
WebCas
Categories
Painting

The Origin – stardust everywhere

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The universe is made of stardust. It fills our oceans with billions of water droplets. This water is life. It connects us with the beginning of time. 

Stardust is the matter that we are. The heart is the immaterial wisdom that we are one.

 

The Origin – stardust everywhere
 
acrylics on wooden bench 90 x 150 cm

This work is one of the artworks in THE HEARTPARADE for the Energy4All foundation, an exhibition to help children with mitochondrial disease. 

The HeArtparade hasbeen on display at art and design fairs in 2018 and 2019,  and resulted in an auction evening in the fall of 2019.

National Artdays, november 2018 Nieuwegein