by Natascha Sastra

Artwork Description

"Girl with her pearl" oil on canvas

0.0 x 0.0

We decided to portray Hieke as the 'fashionita to become’ she was before her career as a fashion model would actually start at the age of 18. To portray Hieke as she is, pure, Hieke the girl from a village in the south of the Netherlands, with the necessary travel and work experience for this age, sagacious, sensible and independent, quite self-confident. A girl with big plans for the future, that's why we chose the monumental size (200 x 150 cm). The size symbolizes her dream of the future. For her enthusiasm for the profession. A girl with a warm character, spontaneous, yet modest, well-mannered, balanced and harmonious, this is expressed by the color combinations in the transparent compartments, her personal color palette, carefully selected by herself. The various open and filled transparent subjects also symbolize the different facets that her life has and will have. How is she going to show herself to the outside world, privately and professionally? How does the outside world see her? This will always be looked at through different glasses, depending on the perspective of the viewer, the transparency, the openness and the covered colours are a symbolic reflection of this. The stories she told elatedly about her work and adventures in the big cities bear witness to a cast-iron character, purposeful, dedicated, powerful. With her own physical height, she can best make an impressive first impression. Her favorite movie is Narnja, the favorite protagonist in this film is the lion, and her favorite animal is also a lion. That's why we chose an abstracted lion in the grid and the transparent surfaces. Hieke has an almost symmetrical face, which allowed us to use a predominantly symmetrical grid that emphasizes this natural symmetry, as well as the characteristic 'imperfections'. As a portrait painter, you don't get this opportunity very often, of course. We wanted to accentuate her determination and straight future plans by the clean lines of the grid. Perhaps the most important detail in this portrait is that one pearl, graceful and stylish. This one refers to 'the girl with the pearl earring' by Johannes Vermeer, which means that Hieke, wherever in the world she lives in the future, will always remember where her roots lie, in Nl, just like that other girl with the pearl earring. Her grandmother was fond on pearls, her mother loves pearls, likes to wear them and Hieke also has a weakness for them. The pearl is a symbol in their family. Maybe also for the feminine side of it. We have deliberately chosen to give the pearl a relatively smaller size than that of Johannes Vermeer, because it is mainly a precious symbol for Hieke. It is not about wealth or the financial value of a pearl, (although it is also often found in Hieke's favourite fashion house Dior), but ultimately, modestly, and certainly not theatrically, it is about Hieke's personal warm family memories.

Artwork Details

Medium:

Genre: Figurative