G.J Veenstra (1957-) - Schaatsen elfstedentocht

That there is considerable interest in the paintings of the Frisian artist Gert-Jan Veenstra (Workum, 1957) at home and abroad is not surprising. His work fits into the realist tradition of the old Dutch masters, which has made Dutch painting world-famous. But there is more. Veenstra's main subject is the Dutch landscape. A theme that through the centuries has inspired not only visual artists. 'What remains is the landscape,' wrote the poet Ad Zuiderent, and his colleague Rutger Kopland said of it: 'The landscape gives the illusion that time stands still, but that is illusion. It is such an endlessly slow event that we cannot experience it. We are only short-lived passersby. As far as I’m concerned, poets should make time visible, and indeed time becomes most visible in an attempt to arrest it.' On his canvases, Gert-Jan Veenstra makes time stand still. He shows us landscapes and cityscapes that existed before we came, and that after us, hopefully, will still be there for a very long time. Yet Veenstra's paintings, created with astonishing craftsmanship, are by no means 'painted photographs.' Often they depict scenes we could see with our own eyes, but what we would see could never correspond to a painting by Veenstra. The artist interprets reality. A realistic interpretation, certainly, but not a copy of it. The atmosphere he uniquely conjures is unmistakably his. His work, however realistic, is recognizable and irreplaceably his own.