ELVIRA VAN BOCHOVE Artist
We form connections with each other and with the planet, just by enjoying the magical qualities of water. Water transports life and vitality!
Magic chain
acrylics on canvas, 100 x 50 cm
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 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.
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”.
Letting the water stream. 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
Making golden waves with fire…
Gold in the water 2021
acrylics on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
€ 450,-
Imagine standing by the water and flames and waves make music together. Our planet, the centre of this rhythm…
By the water 2021
acrylics on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
€ 450,-
The impact of fire on water is easy to explain, but in fact is a very mysterious process of natural phenomena that just happen to exist. I have a feeling about snow, I have a feeling about fire, and suddenly everything is different again.
Melting my snow 2021
acrylics on canvas, 40 x 40 cm
€ 400,-
My Winter Bonfire 2021
acrylics on canvas, 40 x 40 cm
€ 400,-
There are few things that give such a feeling of freedom as a fire on a beach. The silence of winter intensifies the wild heat of the flames… it makes it my own place for a while, a connection between earth and air. Breathing space.
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.
The blue sky was created for an exhibition with the theme “Breath of Life”. This is a pentecostal theme, referring to the insufflation of life. The work was on show in a new visitorscenter at Sophiapolder, a small island in the river Noord, in a tidal area .
A strange paradox of omnipresent nature in a cultivated, industrial area.
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
€ 2000,-
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.
