Mater Vitae

On the first encounter with a painting

Mater Vitae is a contemporary figurative painting, shaped by Old Master discipline, precise material awareness and a carefully protected first encounter.

It was built through a slow, layered process in egg tempera and oil on a marouflaged panel.

The female figure is not used as an effect, but as a presence. Historical image forms are present, but not as citation. They serve the concentration of the gaze.

The title Mater Vitae literally means: mother of life. For me, this does not refer only to motherhood, but more broadly to origin, vulnerability, strength and the dignity of embodied life.

In its earlier stages, the work carried the provisional title She The Silent. The definitive title, Mater Vitae, was first disclosed in Maastricht, shortly before the first private encounters with the work.

From the beginning, this work asked for restraint. Not because it had to remain hidden, but because some paintings first need to be encountered in their physical presence. Scale, surface, light, silence and the tension between work and viewer cannot be fully replaced by a reproduction.

For that reason, Mater Vitae was not immediately released in full reproduction. The work was first received in Maastricht in a private setting, with attention to the conditions under which a painting is first seen.

That choice belongs to the work itself.

For me, a painting is never only an image. It is also a constructed object. The support, the ground, the layers, the pigments, the drying time, the skin of the surface and the way light responds to it all help determine what the work becomes.

What is visible rests on many decisions almost no one sees. For me, this is where the seriousness of painting lies.

Mater Vitae asks for time. Not as a gesture, but as a condition for truly encountering the work.

For me, Mater Vitae marks an important point within my practice.

It brings together several lines that had already been present in my work for some time: figuration, female dignity, historical image forms, material discipline and the conviction that a painting is not only made in the studio, but also shaped by the way it enters the world.

The work does not seek a break with tradition. It stands in relation to older image forms, while remaining distinctly contemporary in its presence.

Mater Vitae is not a hidden painting. It is a painting whose first encounter was protected. Not out of distance, but out of respect for what a first encounter with a work can be.

Work details

Mater Vitae

Egg tempera and oil on marouflaged panel
2026
First received in Maastricht in a private setting