''The Unwanted: A Family Portrait'' is a series of drawings pretty much in line with the theme of ''Silenced Minority'', which is about oppression and repression of minorities.
''The Unwanted'' basically consists of a number of portraits of people on the run. The little folks, the ''everyday people'', the ones that are of no importance to the powers that be: the decisionmakers, the influencers. The politicians, the multinationals, the generals. The little folks are the ones that have no influence on the greater events that make up the history of our times. These are the people, whose names aren't mentioned in the history books - apart from, perhaps, certain statistics. But the thing, is, when these great historic events go horridly wrong (and boy, how often they do so), these people are the ones who have to pay the highest price. If not with their life, than at least with the way they led their life.
When those in charge create the kind of upheaval, that forces people to leave their homes, to uproot their lives, they have no choice but to go, to wander and look for safety and shelter elsewhere. That is, if these are anywhere to be found, in a world in which borders are more and more rigolously set and guarded. A world, where human lives are more and more determined by their economic value. In this world, our world, millions of people are adrift, seeking refuge or simply a better life, only to end up in the no man's land between states, between nationalities, between identities. The Unknown. The Unwanted.
You, I, we all know some of these people. We've seen them on the news, in documentaries. The casualties of war, the refugees on the loose, the victims of events not even remotely caused by them. If not, then look in the mirror. Because what happened to them, could very well one day happen to you. To me. To all of us.
One thing though: this is not a political statement of any kind. My work deals about human nature and both the greatest and the darkest stuff mankind is capable of 'achieving'. As I often tell my friends: ''Had 'mankind' been a product, the manufacturer would have organised for a totall recall ages ago.'' Rather than a policital statement, just like ''The Silenced Minority", these are drawings about compassion with people, families, who just want to escape from war, hunger, violence, death. They just want a chance to rebuild their lives. Or what's left of it.
In some ways, it also reflects a bit of my own family history, who once had to leave the land they were born, the land they had known to be their home, and migrated to the unknown country they called their fatherland but had never seen before.
Now, for those of you who have become curious: my parents were born in the former Netherlands colony of the Dutch East-Indies, today's Republic of Indonesia. As Indo's, or to use the official term Indo-Europeans, and as Dutch nationals they were no longer wanted in the young and nationalist republic and what once had been their country of birth had become an unfriendly and alien nation to them. So, they sold whatever they could, packed up their stuff, boarded onto a steamliner and made the long journey to Holland, the unknown fatherland, after having been through years of Japanese occupation during World War II and, immediately after that, the revolutionary uprising of the Indonesian nationalists, resulting in a dirty independence war with many various atrocities commited by both sides.
It's an historic event, that, though I never wanted to admit it, has strongly influenced me as a child and still does, as an adult. In a way, it has shaped the person I am today, my views on the world, on mankind, on society, on relgion - well, basically, anything. And it definitely shows in a lot of my art work, especially in a series like ''The Unwanted - A Family Portrait''.
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