“Just like life: It makes no sense”. Interview with Dutch artist Marcel van Eeden, who plays with the cliche of film-noir by reproducing photographs with his hands, and likes how it is “completely useless”.
In this interview Marcel Van Eeden (b 1965) explains why he likes drawing – using a portable medium which he can take with him “like writing.” He also explains that “violence is nice to draw, because it has some kind of action in it”.
Eeden sets up rules for himself, one of them being that he only uses old photographs and texts from before he was born. He uses these photos to create his own stories: “Stories using historical pictures”. The elements are true historical facts, but the stories are not true, he says. In this way, Eeden feels he is “living in the then” – making himself face his own mortality, since thinking about a before, also implies thinking about an after: “Every day I’m working with non-existence” he says.
The Dutch painter and draftsman Marcel van Eeden is known for his photo-realistic film-noir styled drawings. Eeden studied painting at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, contributed to the Berlin Biennale in 2006, and has since had solo exhibitions all over the world.
Interview: Synne Rifbjerg
Camera: Jakob Solbakken
Edited by: Jakob Solbakken and Martin Kogi
Produced by: Synne Rifbjerg
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2013
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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