CREATOR

Interview With Marcel Hoppenbrouwers

(NETHERLANDS)

ZITA V.: Dear Marcel, please introduce yourself to our readers.

M.H.: My name is Marcel Hoppenbrouwers, 57 years of age, and living in the heart of the Euregion, Maastricht, in The Netherlands. A city known for its strategic position and rich history, where once the best gunsmith craftsmen were found. D‘Artagnan fought and lost his life at the Tongersepoort in 1673, and later Petrus Regout created and industrialized the famous Maastricht porcelain. The home city of the world’s famous musician André Rieu, a place where Mosasaurusses were found, and in 1992, the Treaty of Maastricht was signed, giving birth to the European Union. Specialized in paintings, my studio facilitates most aspects art can offer: conservation, restoration, and creation of art as well as a private gallery. Aside from that, I also use the location to teach advanced painting and restoration skills. Some research is being done too, if necessary, by request in cooperation with specialized external parties.

ZITA V.: How did it happen that restoration and creativity did not come into your life immediately? You were doing other things in your life. What motivated you to make such a change? Tell us about it.

M.H.: My creative nature has always been a part of my life, but like many of us, my parents saw no sustainable future in art in those days. I therefore was directed to follow my father’s footsteps in a technical occupation within the aircraft industry at first, and later I had several jobs in the field of quality assurance. Even though this was not my preferred professional way forward, it did prove to be an advantage later on, as it has sharpened my analytical and problem solving skills and made me strive for excellence and the highest possible quality standards. Apart from that, without the internet, education in the art field simply wasn’t as open, developed, and accessible as it is today. The change came when I lost my job in 2012, I felt the time had come to follow my desire and fully commit to my passion for art. Barely being able to pay for any groceries, I found great relief and happiness in studying new skills, leading to five years of extensive restoration studies. When I successfully passed the final exams, a whole new world of opportunities opened up to me and where my personal proof that I had taken the right decision.

ZITA V.: The restorer is like a medium connecting the moment of the past and the present, like an archeologist of thoughts looking for lost stories and their fragments, deciphering their phenomenon and restoring the lost meaning. What feelings do you get when you touch a master’s masterpiece?

M.H.: Although conserving or restoring any painting – masterpiece or not – can be very challenging, sometimes scary even, I can imagine that most people are overwhelmed by the monetary value of masterpieces when they would encounter one in real life, let alone to physically work on it. To my experience, there is a lot more to it. Of course, the responsibility one feels is enormous, there’s no denying that. But what excites me is the opportunity I am given to time travel into the artist’s world. Being able to read an artist’s work – meaning how an artwork was made and which materials were used – allows a restorer to look over the artist’s shoulder as if he was right there when the artist created the masterpiece. This is a rare privilege, for which I am very grateful. Not everyone gets or has a chance to experience that in life. It gets even more exciting when research reveals specific details like drawings, corrections or even signatures and dates of valuable works that were assumed to be of unknown origin. I have seen bottles of champaign being opened as well as paintings being moved into seclusion as a result of that. The consequences can be quite significant for an owner. Integrity is therefore paramount.

ZITA V.: All the human kind is inexorably caught up in the so-called stream of progress. The more it carries us, the more we break away from our roots. A human breaks out of his past, at the same time destroying it so that it no longer holds him back. Life in the future and its chimerical promises took over. All that you do by recreating the past in artworks is like going against the current, searching for the truth, which is always the most difficult choice. What is the code of restoration art and how fast is it evolving?

M.H.: Every conservator/restorer is subjected to what is called The Charter of Venice, which in short states that we should never alter an artwork, nor completely remove historical damage and that anything we use to achieve the desired result should be reversible without affecting the original if possible. I think other restorers would agree with me that during restoration and sometimes even necessary reconstructions to ensure the damage being made less disturbing or invisible as requested, we do not really re-create an artwork, as all interventions are kept separate from the original in a reversible manner. Science has offered a large contribution of developments over time, especially over the last decennia, with regard to understanding the dynamics of artworks when subjected to time and storage conditions in which artworks are kept, as well as development of new safer methods and improved reversibility. On an individual level, similar developments are always on my agenda, as I constantly question the methods I learned during my education, trying to improve those aspects and reduce any intervention to an absolute minimum, using merely single component materials if possible. I therefore believe that restoration as a craft has become a lot more scientific and we are not done learning any time soon as we are mutually buying a little more time in the inevitable process of decline.

ZITA V.: Now let’s touch a little on your creation. What came first in your life: restoration, graphics, or painting?

M.H.: I started drawing at a very young age. Not being a structural effort back then, it gradually developed over the years into experimenting a bit with watercolor and acrylics. About ten years later, I switched to using oil paint. At that point in time, I also started to use copper sheet metal as a main carrier. Paintings on canvas from my hand are rare, because copper offers the durability I like to add to the artwork’s survival. Along with starting the restoration course, I started creating illustrations and some small paintings with Paraloid and pure pigment, which is challenging, because of the reversible characteristics. Paraloid is a binder used in restoration for retouching, reacting almost immediately to the solvent it is dissolved in. Painting this way is a real skill developer.

ZITA V.: According to the most famous theoretician of surrealism, the writer Andre Breton, the goal of surrealism+ was to “resolve the contradictory conditions of the existence of reality and dream”, and the ways to achieve this were very diverse. How are your works born?

M.H.: The portraits usually come to life in a down to earth manner, upon request. Opposite to that, the genre paintings and illustrations are born in the peculiar twilight as described in your question. To me, it feels like as though some aspect is being highlighted to get my attention, like for example, part of a dream, part of a song, or just a single word someone said or wrote. To me it seems that this is not uniquely related to Surrealism, but I agree with Breton, describing the origin of creativity, which is where the actual magic happens.

ZITA V.: The French philosopher Henri Bergson, based on the suggestive concept of the fluidity of life and intuitive knowledge of the world, developed the concept of the principle of “creative evolution”, which was treated as a universal law of the development of history, culture, and art, which can free man from the contradictions of mercantile reality. He put forward the priority of the intuitive principle over the intellectual one, and claimed the primacy of life and the absolute freedom of the individual. How does intuitive knowing manifest itself in your creative process? What is freedom for you as a creator?

M.H.: Although I understand Bergson priorities, his intuitive principle with regard to the suggestion of freedom, since it is generally accepted as the condition of being as close as possible to one’s true self, without any influence of the conditioned way we think and communicate, I believe that our cognitive side remains to exist to keep a healthy balance enabling us to function properly. For example, I believe Salvador Dali would have had quite a different life history without his dear Gala keeping him balanced, and probably vice versa. Together they were a harmonious equilibrium. I question Bergson’s suggested correlation between intuition and freedom as such, because I feel the development of history and culture originates in what I would like to describe as “freedom of choice”, which I regard as the only real freedom we have. Everything we have learned to express or think is conditioned by information shared by others in any shape or form. The creation of art exists to intentionally influence others in a variety of ways. The only freedom to be found in that is the choice the public has either to accept or deny the offered message it shows. The way intuitive knowing manifests into my paintings usually starts with connecting a single element as a figurative pose or symbolic object to an intuitively received thought concept, to which I add a suitable golden cut composition principle. That specific thought receives intuitive additions for completion. In other words, the intuitive idea is translated by my cognitive mind into a visually tangible image as the composition develops far into the creation process without exactly knowing in advance, what the painting will look like when it is finished. I therefore believe that one cannot exist without the other. We simply cannot avoid that internal translation process and single out purely intuitive creation.

ZITA V.: C.G. Jung said, “... man is necessary to the completion of creation, in other words, he is the second creator of the world, the only one who gave the world an objective meaning, without which he is inaudible, invisible, soundlessly eating, giving birth, dying, shaking his head - for hundreds of millions of years so he would flow in the deepest night of nothingness to an uncertain end. It is human consciousness that has created objective being and meaning, and through this man has found an irreplaceable place for himself in the great process of becoming.” Could it be said that your work is connected to the expressions of collective subconscious archetypes? What exactly is artist’s authenticity?

M.H.: To some extent, I would like to refer to my reply to the previous question. Our generally accepted conditioning of adding value and meaning to who we are and what we do in life, results in or maybe originates from such subconscious archetypes. It shapes us in who we are, and added experience defines what we choose to become. There’s no way denying this affects one’s expressions in art. Our authenticity as art creators is therefore, not only defined by style or the chosen medium used to create a work of art. It is part of who we are.

ZTA V.: If you had the chance, what message would you like to convey to those who will live in a few centuries?

M.H.: My genre paintings and illustrations depict aspects of the human condition that can be described as blind spots. Besides the aesthetics, they function as a mirror held up in an effort to awaken the public, offering an opportunity to learn from by their own choice. As an artist, I strive to be the Fool in the King’s court making good use of the chance you suggest.

ZITA V.: Thank you for the conversation.

M.H.: The pleasure was all mine, thank you!

For those who wish to contact me for inquiries, I offer the following links:

Website: http://marcelhoppenbrouwers.nl/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ma.hoppenbrouwers/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ marcelhoppenbrouwerspuntnl

Email: ma.hoppenbrouwers@gmail.com

© All photos: eine art galerie