There are some paintings or artistic products what are nice but simple. They are perfect decorations in your room but not more than decorations. You don’t stop in front of them asking why this or that part was painted in that way, what is the meaning of the whole picture or a little detail.
Matthias Kamper’s paintings are definitely not only decorations. They give you enough to think about…
In general you can say they are very dynamic, colourful and organic, they are full of movements. You feel that he created his own fantasy world with all kind of strange beings and phenomenon.
These pictures tell a lot about their painter whose head is probably always full of ideas and thoughts about life, our world, death, man-woman relationship and the fact that most people are continuously searching their place.

This is one of my favourite because even it is still dynamic these eyes, which are so soft but on the other hand so highlighted on the painting, give a small calmness and balance for the picture. You want to think what is behind of this, why he painted that way?
It is always funny to see (I loved it if I would be a painter) that when you finish a painting and you think you know it in every little piece and in every meaning as you created, then the audience come out with lots of new sense, that you had never thought and discovered before.
This is what I feel with Matthias’ paintings. I am free to interpret them. I can compose my own stories around them just like anybody else. 

If you are interested in Matthias’ world you can do two things. You can go and visit his exhibition at the U.V.H. (Drift 6, Utrecht) which is open from 8 am till 5 pm (till 1st of December) or you can visit his website (http://home.wanadoo.nl/kamper) where there are many paintings. But of course they cannot substitute the real ones so I suggest you to do both:).

We have something in common with Bianca Enthoven so it is easy for me to write about her. We both are a big fun of the sea but the reason is different. She grew up beside the seaside and I come from a country where is no sea so it is always something miraculous for me.

Bianca is the third young graphic designer who I want to introduce to you. She also just graduated and together with ‘The Curtain Girl’ (Laura) they already founded their own graphic design company. (Their website is: www.roquefort-ontwerpers.nl)

What are the talking slippers? These are bridges between the sea and people. In the past doctors discovered that the sea water cures lots of health problems and quite often they ordered for their patients to be beside the sea and swim in it. Nowadays we have hundreds of medicines and other artificial methods to cure ourselves so people forget that the sea is not only fun but also healthy. In our age we have also a big problem called stress. Everybody runs, full of work and things to do what brought the stress in our life. The sea is just perfect against the stress but people do not have enough attention to recognise this.
Bianca had an idea to make an artistic product, which transmits information about the sea and also addresses people’s attention to the sea and on the other hand it is something what people use on the seaside. This is how the ‘Talking Slippers’ were born.

Bianca splited the good effects of the sea for five categories and made images on a slipper for all of them. The first is the minerals in the water what are different than minerals are in any other kind of water. The fresh and salty air what is good for our lungs. The active life what you can have beside or in the sea, water sport or other games with the waves or the sand that not only children can enjoy.

The sun what is healthy anyway but beside the water is stronger because of the reflections so it gives you D vitamin and happiness. And the fifth one is the relaxation. The sound of the waves and seagulls, the view of the huge water, collecting shells or building sand castle is so relaxing that you forget easily all of your work and family problems….

What is the conclusion? Let’s follow Bianca’s slippers…. Step for! Step for! Step for! Step for! See you on the seaside!

A great idea again! I am among Dutch artists day by day and now I start to understand why the Netherlands was and still is the country of arts… Dutch artists can have very interesting and fascinating ideas!!!

Laura de Jongh is also a young artist from Utrecht who just graduated as a graphic designer. Her masterpiece for her final exam included five personal curtains for people who keep their curtains closed all day long. You can see them round the center of Utrecht.
Windows are part of the Dutch culture. Every tourist can notice that most of the Dutch people don’t use curtain on the main window. I have heard several serious and funny explanations why… But anyway it is a fact that usually 30% of a house exists out of window in Utrecht.

This topic caught Laura’s attention. She made a little study how people communicate with their windows. Objects, plans, animals, paints, stickers always tell something about the people who live there. Then you have an idea that they are old or young, happy, a little crazy or depressed…
Some of the windows are always “open for public” and some of them are always covered. You don’t know what kind of people live in these houses, or what happen inside… You can’t even wave or give a smile to them when you walk in front of the house.

BUT Laura got an idea and made 100 flyers to find some houses with closed curtains. The result 5 houses where she talked with the people to get to know them a little bit. They had an agreement that she would design a curtain for them what tell something about their personalities, situations but without taking their privacy away.

The curtains are ready!
There is one about a girl who likes to sleep a lot but people in front of the windows just don’t let her. They are talking loudly, and ring the bells of their bikes and wake up the sleepy girl.

There is another one, which shows that the family has twins and wants to meet new young people with children. The curtain made by Laura can be used as a children toy, so it will attract children (and their parents).

The third one is about a lady, who works a lot for charity. With Laura’s help she can collect more money for giving to poor people.

Because of the fourth one you know for sure now that there is a man in Utrecht who likes to host guests and talk with different kind of people so if you are enough brave and curious just ring the bell and enter to his personal café.

                                                                                     
The fifth one is the ‘HAHAHA curtain’. People live in that house who like to make other people laugh. They had a sticker on the window ‘Did you laugh today?’ Once with a two years old son they discovered how easy to interact people through the window. When he was waving they were smiling:) 
                                                                                                                      
I recommend you to look for all curtains in the city and if you are a person who always keeps the windows covered just ask Laura to design something funny or interesting for you. You can see she definitely has enough talent and creativity for it!
(Her website is: www.lilalaurara.com)

We were preparing to host visitors in the Babel on the 6th floor. Everybody was a bit busy to making exhibitions, showing new things so I was just walking around when my eyes were attracting by some photos on the wall. Wow! This is something different!

                                                            
I wanted to know more about the pictures and also the person who made them. So I decided to start my “series” about young artists in Utrecht with Petra Warrink.
She will be a graphic designer pretty soon when she will get her diploma from the Art Academy (Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht) in this June. Nowadays her topic is THE LANDSCAPE, especially the link between the landscape, people and culture…

She was already interested in this topic in 2003 and created a very impressive photo exhibition for her school exam. Actually you can travel with her through the whole country without moving.
She chose one of the thickest part of the Netherlands and took photos in every points where the latitudes meet the longitudes. She had 32 points what means 32 pictures on one line heading to north.

This exhibition is a good chance for a foreign person to know better the Netherlands but could be even interesting for Dutch people because it can break some prejudices what they think about their country. It happened with the creator herself because she thought that the Netherlands is a very crowded land, full of cities and the result of this small “photo survey” was that almost 2/3 of the pictures show nature, agricultural lands and animals….

There was a second big conclusion of this project. Namely if you think that you can go everywhere in your country and take some nice photos you will be very disappointed. Holland is much more closed than you would think.
For achieving the project she even had to convince some hunters with guns that she is also kind of hunter but instead of gun she works with a camera:)

Or another time she had to assure an old couple that for taking picture about a piece of nature behind their house they do not need to clean all their backyard…

To find the connection between the landscape and people you should come to the Babel on 22-24 June and walk around. See you here:)!