School of Arts KASK-Koninklijk Conservatorium

 
 
 
 
CALIBRATING SENSIBILITIES
AN INTIMATE RESEARCH INTO NEW WAYS OF ACCURACY

 
Seppe De Meyere
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Masterproef voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van

Master in de beeldende kunsten
 
 
Promotor:
 Anna Luyten
Promotor:
 Narcisse Tordoir
 
 
 
 
Instelling: KASK School of Arts

Academiejaar 2017-18

Derde examenperiode
Deze masterproef is gemaakt door Seppe De Meyere, student aan de Hogeschool Gent, ter voltooiing van Master in
de beeldende kunsten. De standpunten die in deze masterproef zijn verwoord, zijn louter het persoonlijke standpunt
van de individuele auteur en reflecteren niet noodzakelijkerwijs de mening, het officiële standpunt of het beleid van
de Hogeschool Gent.
1
 Calibrating Sensibilities
An intimate research into new ways of accuracy

Seppe De Meyere
Master dissertation
Master Fine Arts, Painting
KASK School Of Arts
2018

Theoretical mentor: Anna Luyten

2 3
 Abstract

Voyaging through mercurial inner artistic landscapes, ensuing growth,

evolving. The search for a new accuracy in pictorial language while being
in a constant state of flux; a language that lays closer to my intentions, and
subsequently closer to my true self. An in-depth inquiry as to how these ever-
changing thoughts analogously manifest themselves through my paintings
and drawings, and how they in turn affect my aesthetic point of view.

This thesis is an attempt at reflecting on those volatile concepts, taking a

multitude of written forms; ranging from thorough analysis to poems, prosaic
frames of thought to diary-like entries, from manifestos to the importance of
the modern-day artist collective. A research of, and in myself, pursuing artistic
integrity and understanding.

4 5
 Table of Contents

Preface IX

Instalment I 22

Interlude I 26

Instalment II 30

Interlude II 34

Interlude III 38

Interlude IV 41

Instalment III 123

Epiloge 127

Bilbiography 128

6 7
Preface

Slowly, my work is evolving. As is my outlook on life, painting, and art in general.

Calmly, but steadily, I am trying new things, gauging new perspectives and
finding beauty in the things around me, beauty in familiarity.
Not a change in field of vision, but a mere recalibration. A shift, a refocus, closer
to myself, as to acquire a better accuracy of how I’m wired. This thesis is an
attempt at a spacious analysis of that; a reflection on the unfolding progression
I’m going through, a contemplation of how I translate my changing worldviews
to painting and drawing. As what I’m writing here is predominately based on
what I feel, it comes as no surprise that it was not an easy endeavour to pour
these vague, elastic and ever-changing thoughts into words.
Writing down what and how I feel worked best when approaching this as
abstract as these notions themselves are; taking shape in the form of poetry,
and prosaic train-of-thought writing. This not only captured the fleeting nature
of these feelings in the best and most interesting way possible, for me it was
also the most honest way of writing down this search to my inner self – more
so than applying a fixed form which in its core varies a lot from the way I work
and paint: namely a searching way.
Since the main premise of this research is based on self-reflection and
analysis, I utilised ways of writing which have been used by numerous artists
throughout art history. For centuries artists have written about and reflected
upon their own work, their mindsets, ideologies and convictions through
manifests – of which I too wrote one, and which is included later on – and
statements; but also through more intimate means of communication, such as
letters to fellow artists, diary entries and personal notes.
What I write here amalgamates in a very fluid and hybrid text – this fluidity
becomes tangible by virtue of the combination of the various ways this thesis
was written in; large parts are composed in first person, while other parts
are shaped through prose or poetry, eventually reaching to diary-like entries,
written down each day after hours of working on a piece. The daily desire
and determination to stand still and dwell upon myself and my work, yield
a versatile materialisation of the words describing these aspects. Different
atmospheres, moods and mindsets have an impact on how these factors are
reflected upon; they’re flexible and shifting, which is echoed in the writings of
this thesis, and the subsequent fluidity of it.

Now, a comparison can be made between how artists used to write and

IX
communicate, and how I, this day and age, use a predominately digital way
to communicate. A common method of exchanging thoughts was through let-
ters. Perhaps some of the most famous ones are those written by Vincent
van Gogh to his brother,1 but a vast array of artists wrote letters to family and
friends, other artists, collectors and curators – letters by artists like Andy War-
hol, Man Ray, Willem de Kooning, Claes Oldenburg and many others have
been well preserved.2 Another way artist’s writings find their way to readers
is through notebooks and diaries, in which artists write down their thoughts
on their work, on life, during their artistic career. Sometimes these notes are
compiled and published, as for example Anselm Kiefer did with his notebooks
from 1998 and 1999;3 others are collected and published in obscure publica-
tions or collective books. For example, the fragments of Anne Truitt’s journal in
Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art.4 A further illustration of these
personal notes is that of the sketchbook notes from Jasper Johns from the
same book: “… Impressions? Metal paper bag? Profile? Duchamp (?) Distort-
ed as a shadow. (Magnetic area) In WHAT use a light and a mirror. The mirror
will throw the light to some other part of the painting. …”5
Others however move towards the other side of the spectrum, writing down
their ideologies and principles in books with a mindset of sharing these theo-
ries as teachings, and a successive distribution of these very writings. When
pondering this notion, a well-known example comes to mind: the colour theo-
ries and teachings of Josef Albers.6
While these concepts and methods of writing have been employed for centu-
ries, and are therefore widely accepted as a means of communication amongst
artists, they stand opposed to the rapid and digital way of communication of
the 21st century – the way I, too, communicate.
My primary way of conversing with other artists is through the application
WhatsApp and through the social media network Instagram. These chats form
an enormous source of inspiration and feedback, and can be interpreted per
se as contemporary letters. It’s an important daily correspondence between
me and my peers in the field of painting, often going on 24/7, since the people
I talk to are globally scattered over different time zones. A common conception
about digital chats is that they’re volatile in nature, quick, disposable. Yet the
chat I’m part of with five other close friends and talented artists – all part of our
404-collective – has very archival qualities for me; an archive of days, weeks
and months consisting of reflections on work, ideas, struggles and so much
more. I often find myself looking back at certain passages, rereading parts
where I shared pictures of unfinished works to see what the others suggested
1
De Leeuw, De Brieven van Vincent van Gogh.
2
Kirwin, More Than Words.
3
Kiefer, Notebooks Volume 1: 1998-1999.
4
Stiles and Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, 124.
5
Ibis., 376.
6
Albers, Interaction of Color.
X XI
or noted. In that light, these chats have a certain materiality, paralleling past
letters. It’s a loosely written and frolicsome texture, one that stands in contrast
to classical academic textures. A comparison between these chats and a letter
of Van Gogh is made following the preface, illustrating the difference yet sim-
ilarities of this modern day correspondence.
This brings me to the reason why I chose to write this thesis in English. At the
one hand there was a will to step out of the seemingly restricted idiom of the
Dutch language; for some reason I’ve always found it easier to express the
complexity of my thoughts and feelings about art through the vast range of
adjectives of the English language. This might be heightened by the constant
talking about, discussing and pondering of my own work and that of others in
English; due to the fact that the homes of my fellow collective members are
dispersed throughout America, Scotland and the United Kingdom. All of them
being native English speakers, I am the only one who speaks another lan-
guage; and since I prefer to write and think about my work in English, it was a
small step to extend it to this thesis.
There are a few moments however where I circle back to my native Dutch ver-
nacular. A few poems remain in that language, since they were originally writ-
ten in Dutch and the subtleties and atmospheres were best preserved without
translation. At the other hand, what I write here is also something I eventually
want to share with those collective counterparts. There’s a necessity to do
so, simply because they’ve become increasingly involved in my life and in the
change of my perception about art and the world around me; along with their
heartfelt interest in what I paint, write and think. As is probably noticeable, the
collective I’m part of has an undisputable personal importance and plays a vi-
tal role in my artistic life. The name of this collective, which I mentioned earlier,
is the 404 – stemming from the digital spheres through which we met, winking
to the well-known cybernated ‘error 404’, and the importance in the concept
of error; both as a part of our respective visual language and the relevance of
it in the searching and creating a body of work. For the past 9 months we’ve
been talking intensely, exchanging thoughts on everything related to painting
and art, but also about ourselves. I can only emphasize the influence they
have in the development of my worldview, of my work and accompanying
techniques. Each doubt was received with respect and care, each insecurity
thought about together. It’s through them that I became aware of growth and
evolution in a different light, a more profound and far reaching flowering. For
me, the concept of a synergy in artmaking is an important one; a concept
which has always been significant during the whole of art history.
Collectives have always existed; mostly as a way of resistance against pre-
vailing institutions and predominant currents, or to try and change the former
popular artistic landscape and its movements, shaping it into their own ideol-
ogies and beliefs. Working together in the pursuit of a common goal.7 Immedi-
ately the Fluxus-movement comes to mind, where the original founder George
Maciunas stated their intentions to be “to promote a revolutionary flood and
tide in art, promote living art, anti-art”,8 functioning as an alternative for aca-
demically grounded art and culture.
Another example of a more strongly opinionated collective is that of the Italian
Forma 1, who proclaimed themselves to be Formalists and Marxists, as to
ultimately keep the progressive elements of their society from falling into the
error of a spent, conformist realism.9
In this day and age there are still collectives being formed, mostly by people
who live and work in the same vicinity – yet the growing forms of online and
digital communication allow artists to form collectives and art hubs while living
in different countries or even on different continents. That is exactly how the
404 came to life. We started talking through Instagram and realized our beliefs
and ideologies about painting and the contemporary art world resided on very
similar wavelengths. We came together not only because we genuinely are
interested in each other’s work, but also because we’re progressively getting
jaded with the ingrained dominant organs like galleries, where a clear hier-
archy exists in which the artist is the dupe. We stand for transparency, being
open and honest about our practices and struggles; we want to diminish the
borders between artist and viewer, create a sincere dialogue.
Even though the origin of our collective came very naturally and spontaneous,
it still was a rather big step to go from the solitary act of painting in the studio
to something like a collective, where suddenly every little detail gets shared.
With the addition of social media and my analogously growing presence on
platforms like Instagram, the very personal doubts quickly became strikingly
public doubts, shamelessly shared for all to see. My 404-companions helped
me deal with that. They helped me realize that the public exposing of these
things isn’t necessarily bad, but instead creates a stronger bond between art-
ist and viewer through the humanization of the art practice.
In this public expression of doubts and uncertainties I often talk about the
things I’m experiencing on a technical level; certain ‘revelations’ or disappoint-
ments I encountered, how time and pauses affect my process. As an example,
I’m quoting an excerpt from day 41, included later on in the thesis:
7
Tate, “Collective”.
8
Tate, “Fluxus”.
9
Milanoartexpo, “Gruppo Forma 1, Manifesto Artistico del 1947”.
XII
“It’s been a while since I’ve properly painted a head so I had to get back into
it. It’s strange that after a month of intense work and then a small week of not
painting 5-8 hours a day can make your fingers feel so inexperienced again.”
The collective plays an important role in all of this. They’re essential in the
preliminary reflection of thoughts and ambiguities before writing about them
in a communal place.
From these points the conclusion can be made that we as a collective find
the act of creation paramount. What goes on behind the scenes is as impor-
tant, perhaps even more important to the viewer and ourselves as is the final
end result. We don’t strive for a competition against certain institutions, but
rather a cohesive community of partisans of the arts. I believe this makes for
a stronger artistic society and collective. These thoughts, together with our
expectations of the collective, are bundled in a collection of manifestos we
wrote. The manifesto I wrote is, as aforementioned, part of this thesis, since
for me it functions as a cornerstone of the ventures I’m currently involved in.
Rich and numerous in examples, hundreds of manifestos have been drafted
throughout the last decades. Manifestos frequently flow out of the establishing
of a collective, going hand in hand when delivering and spreading ideologies.
They generally describe a dissatisfaction with current affairs, and opinions
about what needs to change and how. A great number of manifestos was writ-
ten by gestural and geometrical abstractionists, where the Manifesto Blanco
by Lucio Fontana stands out; claiming that “change is an essential condition
of existence” and “painted canvas and standing plaster figures no longer have
any reason to exist”.10
Others lay closer to how I feel about art, and more importantly, how I write
about and reflect on it. George Baselitz’s Pandemonic Manifesto 1, 2nd Ver-
sion from 1961 is one that resonated with me personally. However vague in its
message, the way Baselitz deals with the concept of a manifesto is something
that greatly inspired me in my writing. To reach its full lyrical impact one has to
read the entire manifesto. Nevertheless, I feel like I need to quote an excerpt
from it:
“Frozen nudes with skin crusts – spilled trail of blood. Bloated and depos-
ited friendly ones. Perspective faces drawn by the moon on the rivers,
faces on which the sewage water drips … oriental light on the pearly teeth
of the belles, cartilage, negative forms, shadow stains and wax drops.
Marching up of the epileptics, orchestrations of the bloated, warted, gru-
el-like, and jellyfish creatures, limbs and interlaced erectile tissue.” 11
10
Stiles and Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, 20, 47-50.
11
Ibid., 235.
XIII
Baselitz’s free and poetical way of writing influenced me, and confirmed that
I, too, could deal with text and writing about my work and convictions in such
a rhapsodic way.
Nonetheless, the manifestos we wrote ourselves were mainly to see how
each of us thought about the collective and the means of it, to open discus-
sion about the connotations it entails, with the notion to eventually combine
them into a single concrete manifesto which represents us and what we stand
for. They’re structured and focused on long-term goals; seeking each other
through words, trying to guide our intentions.
Another prominent factor in the shifts in my way of thinking is that of the pro-
found impact of contemporary painters through direct and indirect contact.
There’s a number of painters whose work I’ve been following for quite some
time – a few painters who are important for me are Nicolás Uribe, Xevi Sola
Serra, Zoey Frank and Antonio López Garcia. Even though I’ve always felt at-
tracted to their work, their paintings only really started making sense, gaining
more and more importance and meaning over the past 5 months. As a result,
I started reaching out to Uribe, Serra and Frank through the vast and often
billowing waters of Instagram.
Sadly, a great deal of artists on Instagram aren’t very talkative, or even respon-
sive for that matter. Yet this doesn’t stop me from contacting them. Regularly
expressing thoughts and fascination with their work, asking questions about
certain images, methods of working or very technical questions like how they
glaze finished paintings. I contacted the Spanish painter Xevi Sola, inquiring if
I could ask him a few questions relating to his work and his pictorial language.
Upon agreeing with this I asked him about the psychological aspects of his
portraits and technical questions; how he builds up his paintings, what his col-
our palette consists of, etc. Sadly, by the time this thesis is getting published
he read the questions but has not yet provided me with any answers. Nicolás
Uribe is probably one of the few I have frequent short conversations with.
Uribe has ideologies and certain convictions which lay very close to those of
the 404-collective; the idea for instance that a community among artists and
admirers of the arts goes a much longer and acute way than the established
hierarchies common in galleries, is one we both agree on and work towards.
When prompted about this issue in an email I sent him, and asking what his
analogous trigger moments were in his artistic growth, he replied:
“I am glad that you want to fight this fight through simple honesty. There’s
a horrible saying that too many artists abide by, “fake it until you make it”.
XIV
That is our bane. Sharing our experiences, our faults, our biases, our
short-comings is the only way we can really connect as artists…
I have been, at various stages of my career, in front of literal crossroads,
where I’ve had to pick between producing very superficial works that
would have undoubtedly been commercially successful, and making
paintings that subjectively meant a great deal to me but made no sense
in terms of the art market. I am happy to say that I’ve always picked the
latter.
I believe that the peace of mind that we painters have, knowing that we
painted the things that seemed right, that felt right, that have purpose in
our lives, that are spurred by the most basic need to do, to make, to say,
is priceless.”12
It’s conversations like this that make me look forward to the future of con-
temporary painting. Knowing there are very talented artists out there who are
working with this attitude, working towards a better future for artists to reside
and work in, where creativity and the work itself are once again centralized.
So, in conclusion, deriving out of these main three issues the malleable sub-
ject of this thesis took form. They form the foundations that lay at the core of
the inward research done about my evolving and expanding work and mind-
set; about the ongoing search for a new and refocused accuracy in my pictori-
al language. I used myself as a calibration apparatus to conduct that research,
using the term research in the broadest meaning of the word possible.
The paintings done in the last few months slowly eventuated from dealing with
these matters on a daily basis. They arose through the analysis and reflection
of my own practices, through the intense and extremely nourishing conversa-
tions with the members of my collective, and the communication with contem-
porary associates in the field of painting. Consorting these factors, they form
a strong basis for calibrating yourself as a human being, as a painter in the
21st century.
12
Nicolás Uribe (painter, e-mail), interviewed by Seppe De Meyere, August 8, 2018.
XV
XVI XVII
XVIII XIX
 Comparison of the chat with three letters written by Vincent Van Gogh, accompanied by a number
of drawings and sketches for possible future paintings.

XX XXI
Instalment I

I’m experiencing equal amounts of thrill-

ing fun and stifling unfamiliarity with this
painting of a dog.
Then again, I’m getting a lot of ideas
out of this; imagery, atmosphere, paint
application.
Sure, it’s still a work in progress; con-
trast is still too high, it still needs more
textures, layers. But I want to scumble
over it, build up a bit more, just to break
some of the flat marks.

Now when I say atmosphere, right now

that’s still a very emotionally based no-
tion, a feeling I can’t fully grasp yet.

A certain grimness.

Personally impersonal.

Bright flash, dark cast shadows,

‘R. Mutt’
Like a glimpse in a life, 40x50cm
startled, Oil on canvas
caught off guard.
Flash is revealing, unkind
Intrusive.

Falling in slow motion alongside the

edges of the uncanny valley.

Light is such an important thing.

It creates, illuminates,
urges growth and life in its core.

But why that light? Why that feeling of a

sudden burst, a shard in darkness?

22 23
Why the kind of exposing, penetrating
light that is so opposite to the soft nur-
turing sunlight?
I’m not talking about polished
flash-enhanced studio shots, I’m talk-
ing about the gritty, almost abhorrent
stuff; people caught in darkness, night,
roaming, slithering. Weird pauses in
time, detached from life, severed from
daily pretences.
Perhaps because it’s so revealing, al-
most unforgiving.
Perhaps it’s a reflection of myself.
Perhaps that’s a cliché.
A reflection of my perception about
sensory information, which poses a
certain individuality and focused field
of vision, and which then comes full
circle and accumulates in that same
perception that drives these things.
Basically, everyone has their
own sets of interests, triggered and fed
by very specific things that resonate
within them. The fact that I keep being
drawn to a certain feeling of oddity and
the uncanny in my work – a deviance
in imagery – is something I still don’t
feel like I fully and truly understand.
Yet by examining that feeling through
painting, it can be perceived as a re-
flection upon those feelings, and in ex-
tension, upon myself.
Those attractions and fascinations are
in a way focused since I keep coming
back to them – even though the form in
which they’re represented is evolving.
In that sense, one can pose that those
stimuli form a possible individuality
24
about my work.
The main trigger for these interests is
sensory-based, taking shape in atmos-
phere, feeling, light, ambiguity. Ambi-
guity bleeds into an emotional reac-
tion, a set of sentiments, which forms
another main trigger. A visual sem-
blance of these factors. A feeling of
pathos, an attempt to transform these
notions and sensibilities into palpable
visual stimuli.
Those things, combined with the man-
ifestation of them – mainly being the
visual imagery – accumulates in that
same perception which drives all these
motives in the first place. And when an-
alysed, results in the aforementioned
dissection, hence coming full circle.
One cannot exist without the
other, which exists because of the one.
A notion grows
Steadily
of potential collision
A common ground
Past darkness and
contortion
Weaving into light
Translucent,
blending into candour
Compos mentis
departing from insanity
No break, however
Assimilation
25
Interlude I Grey matter stuck in limbo
Mind ahead and
onward but
As of late, my imagery is slowly developing, growing. I somehow feel, after all cemented limbs won’t follow
these years of constantly increasing sources of inspiration, that I’m stepping Unknowingly knowing
into a realm of possible alteration. My perfectionism and fear of letting go, of Forward, forward
failing and breaking down has previously impeded a growth in my work.
Sustained ideas necrosing
For a long time, I was unable to research the painterly qualities which in- Gaze upon
trigued and inspired me, because of that fear of failure. The mere idea that I’d And grasp nor touch, yet
paint something which I would not like the looks of, or which would give me vicinage enclosing
the feeling that I can’t paint at all, was horrifying. But then I started to deform Seemingly knowing
my images, and a world of beauty in failure revealed itself. Disentangle, forward
In those first moments I tapped into a visual world which was close to me. Yet
I couldn’t comprehend the significance of that back then. Aesthetical urgency Fragile bulk exfoliates
still prevailed over the conceptual and emotional bearings that lay at my core. Iron brick stuck
years eroding,
As a result, I resorted to the old masters. An attempt to understand them inside no longer throbbing
better, but in retrospect, probably also to get the overly dramatic out of my Clarity approaching
system. Resolution, forward
It took about 2 years until I started hitting walls. Problems I faced years back
resurfaced – how do I solve large areas in an interesting way? How do I get Forward
closer to the painterly language that’s present in 3/4ths of the artists that I’m
fond of, and which I, in extension, want to achieve something similar to?
Analogously a new line of questions arose, questions about the nature of my Ensuing this subliminal barrier, I happened upon something that would radi-
work, about what it was, or is, that I want to capture. cally change my perception of painting.
Of course, these kinds of questions went through my mind a lot in the Upon something, someone, an association of people, who would become very
years before that, but now they suddenly became a pressing issue, and turned close friends. We met through the vast network of fibre wires spanning conti-
into a slight personality crisis. nents and deep-sea trenches, and fired up. After realisation and discussion,
I came to a halt. Block, brick wall, square one. we officialised ourselves and poured our encompassing cluster of mindsets
The realisation dawned upon me that I didn’t want to paint deformed old mas- into a collective – the birth of the 404.
ter interpretations indefinitely. I needed to continue building my own world, in This very collective lays at the core of my change in vision and understanding
which some aspects of those old masters may be present, but don’t prevail. of painting. Not only did they teach me what had been notions, silently brew-
ing in the back of my mind for years, they were able to dilate my confined gaze
I now stood in front of two crucial issues in my work. and reassured me and my endeavours in the directional shift of my work.
The heightening level of discontent surrounding my pictorial language – paint Analogously with this we set up a project called 100heads – painting and/or
application, brushwork, build-up, dealing with light and shadow in substanti- drawing a portrait a day, 100 days straight. An inciting pretext, but one that
ated ways. would urge each and every one of us to encounter ourselves multiple times
The pressing matter of a lack of individuality and authenticity in my imagery – throughout.
outdated tropes. With this challenge the opportunity arose to experiment, to fail, to try out new
things without consequences; consequences to the expectations I’ve set for
myself. Slowly the impact and possibilities of this project started seeping
through, dripping into the dense compacted assumptions settled in my mind.
Finally, I started roaming the vast and visceral plains of painting.

26 27
For the first time I felt a freedom in painting, a liberation I knew I needed to let
my work change the way I wanted it to. It took me a while to let go of certain
habits, structures, even colours. I painted a lot of things I wasn’t happy with,
but was able to see through that, to see future possibilities; ascertain, paint,
examine, evaluate, alter, re-evaluate, conclude, reflect.
I’ve always been a fairly slow painter, taking my time – often too much. The
situation I was in forced me to change gears drastically. Painting every day,
7-10 hours straight, fighting my patterns, restructure. It was as challenging as
it was stimulating.
Browsing my archives of images, it quickly became apparent that repetition
was forming. Predominate darkness, theatricality and tragedy became abra-
sive aspects of the images gathered. I became aware of different qualities
luring in images and photographs that previously got pushed to the back. This
made me think about the atmospheres and feelings I wanted to establish in
my paintings through the subject matter in a new light. By playing with hues,
light, reducing contrast, paying more attention to solving different areas in
a more painterly way, I noticed I could come much closer to those desired,
murky ambiences. A paradox surfaced with this conclusion: the semblance of
a looming presence, a feeling of discomfort and unease were stronger when
I focussed on a language that lay closer to reality; even though the things I
paint question that reality. For an image to appear more poignant, unsettling,
eerie and even threatening, it has to be relatable – “I’ve been in a room similar
to this one”, “my grandmother has that same lamp”; perceiving, recognition.
By painting with this paradox in mind, the feeling or impression of an image
can come much closer to something that gets under your skin, something
peculiar, as opposed to a big, predominantly dark painting, heavily laden with
emotion.
In conclusion, I felt an urge to paint things closer to myself, imagery that felt
personal and had a sense of intimacy to it.
A striking similarity to this train of thought I found while reading a book about
Antonio López Garcia.
As previously mentioned, the work I made before the old master interpreta-
tions was based on images I didn’t yet understand the significance of. During
these portrait paintings the importance of intimacy became clear. People start-
ed sending in pictures of themselves, little snippets of their lives, snapshots;
and by studying these pictures a feeling of closeness emerged.
Slowly I realised that, even though most of these people were strangers to
me, the meaning of the paintings I did gained a lot of strength. Much more
than an anonymous shadowy figure could produce.
As a result, the painters I had been looking at for years started making more
sense to me. I finally understood my appeal to the conceptuality of their work,
to their visual language. Why paint these ungraspable dramatic images when
I could find the same sensibilities, perhaps even stronger ones, in the things
around me? Why flee to veils of darkness I thought represented myself, when
in fact they were just an exaggeration of only one aspect of my interests?
These questions, in hindsight, seem fairly obvious. Lots of people use the
things surrounding them as a source of inspiration, but it took me a few years
and a strange detour to be able to figure out how exactly I could use those
things closest to me in a way that felt right and interesting.
By focussing on my own surroundings I’m trying to get a better understanding
of them, and subsequently of myself. Even if that concept remains abstracted.
A whole new way of filtering and editing images is taking form, my perception
of the world around me has changed, as did my approach to gathering image-
ry and the translation of it to paint.

“No longer was I unaware of the daily struggle, the extreme, obsessive
concentration inherent in the creative act of painting, which forces the
perceptive and conceptual mechanisms of one’s mind to be in a con-
stant state of alert: an acute dissection of everything around us. I began
to understand that emotion could be found in light, in objects, in walls,
in faces or in flowers. That is to say, the whole world could reside in that
which is most proximate.”

- María López Moreno13

13
Agnew and Agnew, Antonio López, 30.

28 29
Instalment II
Scope enlarges,
digital spheres veined with prospect.
Instagram in back of mind.
Fastness, haste impediment – an urge
for online activity.
It changes the way I work, or rather,
the cadence of creation. The passing
of time stimulates a feeling of tension,
restlessness – counting days since the
last post.
It’s unhealthy, changing your focus
from development and growth in
something you’re working on to a mere
digital presence.
Seeking approval in unknown masses.
A double-edged sword in nature
but not sharp on both sides.
A different kind of approval,
reaching out to artists, to a larg-
er crowd
Big contemporary artists can be
humanized, reached out to.
Increased exposure to images, paint-
ings
Getting a glimpse of artists them-
selves, their lives, what’s brewing in
collective studios. Paintings and draw-
ings get analysed, shared up close; a
view behind their curtains.
Asking for opinions, even though
known artists rarely answer. But it’s
about the possibility, the opportunity.
Why the need for social media?
30
It became inherent to our times, built-
in. It gives in two ways.
Giving chances, a vast audience,
broad spectrum of hands-on influence,
changes in perception.
Giving insecurities, fear of falling short.
Having to raise the bar, again and
again, for what?
Insignificance; self-attached impor-
tance.
An idea
Light not scattered; collected
bundled and packed, tight focus, blast
Nerve tissue fractured and gathered
inward,
exfoliates out
An idea: paint, light/ malleable and
nourishing,
delicate
hardens – harsh fixated
Gathers in a focal point
red dot through wavelength particles
An image develops, concretizes
A fluid concept like mercury
Movement becomes abstract
Strobe, this sudden caught off guard
Chisel into personal space,
abrupt interruption of self and other
Disturbance in the ether of a psyche,
and in that way, depict a psychological
scene.
31
 An unrelenting flashlight, saturating
scenery – wet, drenched in glare
Separate possibilities, cut, space,
compose
eerie structures in spatial alcoves

Painting an image of myself, cramped

in forty centimeters
Vexed face of disquietude
Surroundings in which I basically exist
together with their indisputable dilem-
mas and strife
A biased place – resting, recuperating;
strenuous work
Space of quiet reflection
Turmoil
Synchronous actuality
codependent

Abrupt light shatters; a focal diffusion

that bathes, submerges

A soft reverberation

‘Self Portrait with Yellow Watering Can’

40x40cm
Oil on canvas

32 33
Interlude II Malachieten halo
Hangt zwaar gebeiteld
Delicaat beschermt het
Zwart gevleugeld kronkelende vervorming
de tragedie
Stil verstomd Antieken voorbij,
in spraakzaamheid ooglijke permutatie
Vlerkt krampachtig toont zich apathisch
wiekt voorzichtig
Vluchtig in haar tijdloosheid Wanproduct der ontplooiing
Maar schoon daarin
Glooiend tijdsgewricht
- Concludeert in visuele entropie.

Gevoel van verslagenheid -

van opgegeven onmacht, misère
Ontnuchterende desillusie –
maar nederige acceptatie Beladen mimiek
Vertekende realiteit in wezenlijkheid Achronisch gebarenspel –
reëel. een constante
Fluctueert onomstotelijk,
Indringend bescheiden en inaugureel geaard
Zachtzinnig oordelend
Stroomt het, Omhulsel, matrix
verzakt in amorfe schoonheid
Zwaarte dragend
Een monumentale tristesse Contemporaine ratio
in een langzame transpositie

34 35
Zacht omzwachteld
groen fluweel
Transplanteert het, opgesteven
Vlees verzakt en
tornt, dan scheurt
Uiteengereten
transmuteert

Melancholische morose
Integriteit – artificieel
Barokke echo
irreversibel,
galmt in archaïsch residu.

‘Dafalgan’
40x40cm
Oil on canvas

36 37
Interlude III
404 MANIFESTO
To write a manifesto is a big thing. Throughout the art history a lot of impor-
tance has been attached to collective manifestos - since they are a bookmark
in not only the lives of individual artists, but also mark a period in time where
things had to change, where change was needed, where a group of individuals
felt drawn together and therefore urged to write down their thoughts, visions,
ideologies concerning art, with the hopes and intentions of (radical) change.
This is something I feel is happening right now in this very moment as well.
For as long as I remember being aware and conscious about art, I have had a
general dissociative feeling towards modern and contemporary art practices.
For some reason I felt out of place, everything was too random. It felt like a
chaotic amalgamation of every thought an artist ever had, thrown together in
a big soup of borderless frenzy. One could get away with anything, and to me
that idea didn’t do specific practices any favours.
I have always had strong preferences towards figurative art, and painting in
particular. There’s just something about the collective attempt to try and inter-
pret life and everything around yourself; to try and translate all these things
combined with personal sensibilities, emotions, psychological attachments
and perspectives in a way that reflects those specific combinations of dispo-
sitions.
To manipulate pigments and oils in such a way that they give voice and life to
those exact dispositions is something incredible to me. A material so simple,
so basal, yet capable of expressing the complex arrays of human emotion and
sensibility, taking the shape of those very things around us – fuck me that’s
swell!
Transmittable signals brought together a group of people, myself included,
who seemed to tremble on the same wavelengths. A group of people who saw
enormous potential in encouraging, pushing, helping, loving each other as a
person and as an artist.
Sprouting from a careful distanced approach we quickly started to get to know
each other on the inside and outside, growing from simple admirers of each
other’s work into intimate and close friends.
And so, with the earlier mentioned focus on and interest in figuration, the 404
was born. Sweet baby jesus in the seven heavens have mercy!
I never actively looked to join and/or start a collective. What excites me is that
this just very organically happened, that we suddenly just found ourselves in
a situation that basically is the definition of a collective.
We’re all different ages, have different occupations apart from painting, but for
me it’s rather clear what I see in this.
For me the 404 has a future, and one on multiple levels at that.
I feel like this artistic organ is a plausible and very interesting gateway towards
future careers. The basic idea we have here can be extrapolated on in so
38
many different ways. Even if particular chances present themselves for indi-
viduals within the group, there’s always the core to come back to, to rely on,
to start from, to tap into, to fall back on. A lot we’d do would be stimulated
through the collective which functions as a foundation – a vividly functioning
artistic nucleus from which we can branch out for particular individual projects/
opportunities.
Now this aforementioned basic idea for me implies a need, an urge to put a
mark on the current artistic landscape; to change it, and to push that change
through other artists to the viewers. Thus creating an interactive and trans-
parent community in which openness, honesty, respect and artistic prowess
is placed central.
I think this is a very important stance to take in today’s art world where a lot is
currently decided by some big shots, where the artist is forced in a submissive
position in terms of creating work and bringing it outside of the studio to show.
The artistic endeavours we go through shouldn’t be taken advantage of, we
shouldn’t be subjected to the harsh and dishonest system a lot of museums
and gallery owners embody.
I want transparency, to shrink the gap between the artist and the viewer, to
be able to be honest about the ups and downs about painting. Not everything
happens flawlessly overnight, we struggle more often than things go smoothly.
So not only would I like the 404 to be a pillar in the landscape of contemporary
painting and art that yields a change in direction, approach and mindset of the
art world, at the same time I want it to review the stance of the artist in this all.
Sure, the people higher up than the artist can have a crushing weight, yet the
artist still is placed on a pedestal and is regarded as invincible.
We are not.
I don’t want us to appear vulnerable and weak, but I want us to be sincere and
unambiguous about what it means to be an artist, what it means to dedicate
our lives to the creating of paintings and therefore art.
These things – which are among many things the 404 is about for me – I keep
in high regard.
I feel the 404, we, the lot of us, are capable of doing this. Of leaving an ever-
lasting mark on the art world.
I want to build on this, nurture it, eventually come together and bundle all our
collective thoughts, ideas and ideologies into one stream of thought. To pro-
ject these things through a multifocal lens into a school. Whether this school
would be physical or intellectual, I don’t know. But I do think it’s just a matter of
time before we put all our ideas together (printing books, setting up projects,
recording podcasts, doing interviews, …) which will result in something way
bigger than we could’ve ever imagined.
-
39
We are the 404. This collective was formed to embody a central platform
for our shared ideas and collaborative experiences: a collective nerve centre
where we push one another toward enhancing, even exceeding our craft.
Through this channel, we want to share our experiences with you and every-
one else in our community. From our major successes to our failures, we
want to be blunt and honestly open up about the artistic, emotional as well as
personal challenges we face.
Making art, whether it’s painting, drawing, or any combination of media can be
a lonely venture - we felt it important, if not necessary, to create a place where
interaction is encouraged, everyone is welcome, and ideas thrive and evolve.
This is only the beginning. We as a group intend to introduce a variety of pro-
jects further down the line, ranging from community involvement to organizing
physical events internationally.
40
Interlude IV
What follows is a collection of reflections written over a period of approximate-
ly 8 months. They are written in connection with the aforementioned 100heads
challenge, where a portrait was to be painted or drawn every day for 100 days
long.
The entire project took me 8 months to complete, instead of the predicted 3,5
months. This is, which will become apparent in the following descriptions, be-
cause along the way I started noticing changes in my work, in how I perceived
my work. This revelation of sorts made me slow down and focus on those
changes, in order to be able to fully focus on them since I felt like the project
was slowly merging with my other, personal work.
I became intrigued, and decided to take my time with the rest of the portraits;
going from small studies to larger and more extensive paintings. This chal-
lenge turned out to be a profound platform where I got the freedom to let
loose, experiment, try, fail, but also reboot and try again.
The captions are written in a different font than the one used in the rest of
this thesis. It’s the font used by Instagram, where these diary entries origi-
nate from. The idea behind this decision is to accentuate the different forms
of writing used during the overarching development of this dissertation. It’s a
different texture in writing, a divergent sensibility behind the thought process
when writing it.
Now, considering that my thesis is focused on the artistic chrysalis I am going
through, it seemed appropriate to include this lengthy and intense part of my
life.
Every caption and description entails a spontaneous and consecutive reflec-
tion, written just minutes after completing each portrait.
These short descriptions aren’t always as objective, since they were written
down in the often emotional aftermath of the creation. Optimism, contentment,
passiveness, irritation, frustration; all vital parts in the act of painting and draw-
ing. Yet these reflections proved to be important in my understanding of how I
see my work, and more importantly, the direction I want to take it in.
41
Day 1: Nico
Super stoked to join Denis Dalesio, Milo
Hartnoll, Michael Wolf and Mark Wrob-
lewski in their challenge to draw 100
heads in 100 days!
I’ve been neglecting my drawing way
too much so this’ll be a nice opportunity
to get back on it.
Drawing of Nico Rondelez.
Conté and pencil on paper
Ca. 4 hours
- that this image did no lend itself to pen-
Day 2: ‘Lobotomy’
Charcoal on paper
Leaning towards some obscure iconog-
raphy to base my portraits on - a real
surprise!
Some exciting things are in the making
with the rest of the guys so stay tuned!
Ca. 5 hours
- Day 6: ‘Post-Graft’
Day 3: ‘Surgery’
A baby having eye surgery, probably.
Didn’t have the right colours and I had
to scratch with what I had, so the result
lacks the right atmosphere and desired
tonalities I was aiming for.
Ca. 4 hours
42
Day 4: ‘Trauma’
Had a bad day today so I completely
botched this drawing. Good thing is I
know what to avoid next time.
Pencil on paper
-
Day 5: ‘Narcosis’
This drawing started out with pencils
but soon I came to the understanding
cils at all, so in a wave of despair I threw
some gouaches over it.
Since I’m pretty rusty with gouache I
tried to paint the image quick and loose
as to not overwork it and to keep a cer-
tain spontaneity.
Ca. 5 hours
-
WWI soldier after he got one of the first
skin grafts ever performed.
Tried to change my way of working
with charcoal and keep the drawing
more loose and free in light of what
my 404-colleagues are doing with their
drawings.
Charcoal and gouache on paper
Ca. 6 hours
43
Day 7: ‘Injury’
Missed my oils too much so I gave in
and decided to paint a little portrait.
I’m not used anymore to paint a full head
in just a couple of hours so I’m inclined
to call it a study, here you go!
Exciting things be happening soon with
the rest of the crew!
Ca. 6 hours

Day 8: ‘Shift’
This painting started out as something
completely different but I just couldn’t
seem to get it right.
Once I was able to disconnect en
masse and get the fixed imagery out of
my mind I could finally let loose, experi-
ment and start to paint freely.
4 Thanks to my wonderful babes for
their 0 input and insane work to keep
me going! 4

Day 9: ‘Kindred’
Started very late today, hence the late
post. I had fun painting this one, tried to
keep my brushstrokes very loose and
build the face up like that. A completely
different way of painting which I’m ac-
customed to.
Also joining us in the 100 heads chal-
lenge are three amazing artists, stoked
to see you all participating!
Ca. 6 hours
Day 10: ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’
Head of a criminal who just died on the
operating table.
Had a lot of work on this one to get all of
the shapes, nuances and colours right -
the nose is still jacked up and a little too
flat, I might tinker a little more on it the
following days!
Very excited to see this project reaching
further and persuading so many people
to join in!
24x30cm - ca. 7 hours
Oil on canvas

44 45
Day 11: ‘Bloodbath’
Leaving the oil portraits for a while since
I’ve run out of small canvasses and I
desperately need to continue work on
my bigger paintings.
I really need to step up my gouache
game so I’m going to focus on those
the next couple of days. This is a very
dodgy start.
Gouache on grounded paper
- Ca. 6,5 hours
Day 12: ‘Salamander’
Had a little head-to-head today with my
babe Milo Hartnoll. Worked from the
same reference image and interpreted
it in the best way we knew how to. More
of a natural glitch, submerged watery
heads. I had to rush so I kinda messed it
up resulting in dead, dull colours. Better
day tomorrow.
Oil on canvas - ca. 6 hours
- skin tones emerging from the darkness
Day 13: —
Started a painting today but everything
that could go wrong, went wrong.
Scraped it down 2 times, started over,
and then again, until I just decided to
bang out a quick watercolour.
It’s done in about a small 30min - which
the quality reflects - so tomorrow I’ll try
to nourish the painting need in a more
satisfying way.
Today was literally 404.
46
Day 14: ‘Genome’
Had a very late start today so again
posting rather late, but it’s still today so
it counts! Had a lot of fun again paint-
ing this one, it’s a challenge to get that
stubble colour in the skin but layer after
layer it slowly emerged. Focussed on
my brushstrokes and colour today, try-
ing to sculpt the flesh and bringing in-
teresting contrasts between warm and
cold tones.
Oil on canvas
-
Day 15: ‘Bones Crack’
Since yellow scares me to paint with I
wanted to confront it and make it a val-
ued member of my palette. This paint-
ing started out with the idea of an easy
portrait, and so it appeared in the first
layers. Yet it came back around and
seriously bit me in the ass, the yellows
and greens combined with the warm
were damn hard to balance. At least it’s
a start!
Also: mark January 22nd in your agen-
da’s, exciting stuff is happening!
Oil on canvas
Ca. 6 hours
47
Day 16: ‘Doc’ Day 17: ‘Haemorrhage’
I had to rush this one like crazy cause I Ent́e̷̕ŕ͟͝ t̢h̡e̷ ҉̢v͢͝o͘͟͢i̵̸͜d͡, ̢n̴͟éw ̢́̕a̡g̕e ̵̢ȩ̴m̷͠͡bǫ͡d͝i̴͟m̶͠e͞͏ńt̨̧
didn’t have a lot of time today. It’s also ͠-̴̵̧ ̨̛͡m҉a͏͘͝t̶͟rix ҉un͡r͘͢͜a̕v̶̀è̛ļ̴͜i̛͏̵n͏g͘҉ ̡͝2̷͡2n̢͟d͢͝ ó͟͞f ̴j̸̛̀a̷nu̶͜a̴͠rỳ̸
one of those images that looks great
but just doesn’t translate in a similar in- Enter the void, new age embodiment –
teresting way to the canvas. Might alter matrix unravelling 22nd of January
the background in a later stage, feels
like there’s something missing. You win
some you lose some.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 2,5 hours
22nd —— 22nd —— 22nd —— 22nd
Get hyped!

Day 17: ‘Haemorrhage’

Opposite page —>

Day 18: ‘Prey’

Finished this painting while live stream-
ing with Denis yesterday in celebration
of the official launch of our 404 page.
I didn’t post it afterwards because it
was already too late, but here you go!
Thanks to everyone who joined in and
withstood our artistic and personal ram-
blings!
Painting of today should be posted to-
night.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 5,5 hours

‘Haemorrhage’
23x30cm
Oil on canvasboard

48 49
Day 19: ‘Loko-Miroir’
Messy and slow one today, still some
rough areas I would’ve done differently
but oh well, I’m rather satisfied with the
general feel and atmosphere.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 9 hours
- amine new ways of building up my im-
Day 20: ‘Dominus Infernus Hobiscum’
This painting kicked my ass, repeated-
ly, for hours. I couldn’t for the life of me
get the colours right. I’m used to make
paintings with a lot of darks and contrast
so this was a big challenge to say at the
least.
Luckily through the help of my lovely
404 babes I kept pushing and altering
and smearing that paint around until this
image arose. I would’ve done a lot of
things differently, but I’ve gained a lot of
insight on how to tackle future paintings.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 10 hours
50
Day 21: ‘Fetish’
So since I hit that 20 mark yesterday, I
thought it would be a good time to focus
on all the things I’ve learned the past 20
days -through my 404 fam and by paint-
ing so vigorously every day for the last
20 days - and put them into practice.
I’m planning on doing a couple of rough
paintings and experiments, trying to ex-
ages and how to solve certain problems
- which in turn will help me deal with my
larger paintings.
Oil on canvas - 2,5 hours
-
Day 22: ‘Threat’
I wanted to get a better knowledge
about light, how it wraps around a face,
how the values shift through the differ-
ent tonalities etc. So a monochrome
seemed to be a good way to practice
these things.
Slowly getting the hang of building up
my paintings like this and I have to say I
like it quite a bit. This may seem like an
obvious way to build up but for some
reason I’ve never really painted like this,
always got away by doing what I was
used to do. Included some progress
shots for those who are interested.
ALSO: please slide me a DM if you want
to swap faces or references for future
heads!
Oil on canvas, approx. 3 hours
51
Day 23: ‘Ne10’
Although probably quite some of you
may not necessarily like this painting, it
was a very important one for me to do.
What started out as a reinterpretation of
yesterday’s painting, ended up in a pro-
cess that undermined my very core of
established values on which my entire
practice is built.
I’ve always had a fear of destroying
paintings in the act, of losing certain
parts that I like while working. And to-
day, with the help of Milo Hartnoll I tried
to overcome those fears and moulded
this painting through an array of stag-
es, some of which I liked, and ended
up destroying it. The final stage (sec-
ond image) may not even be close to
what I wanted to achieve, but through
this painting I’ve gained a better under-
standing of light, how it plays through
the shadows of a face, how to better un-
derstand a build-up of a face and how
certain problems can be solved.
Day 24: ‘Acid’
Very quick and rudimentary study today
from a reference brought to me by my
bespectacled babe Milo Hartnoll I feel
like I’m somehow completely relearn-
ing how to paint. Things I’m used to do
and comfortable with are now pushed
to the background and other, actually
more important things I’m not used to
at all are pushed to the foreground. I’m
way out of my comfort zone and it’s as
intriguing as it is frightening.
Still I’m going to continue this for the
next couple of days so hold on to your
collective hat and prepare yourselves
for some weird things.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 45 minutes

This is quite the rant, I’m aware of that,

but I felt it necessary to reflect on this
in order to better understand it, and
perhaps some of you are interested
in the regenerating process I’m going
through.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 7 hours

52 53
 Day 26: ‘Hoarse’
So I came across this reference which
immediately struck me like it was a
painting from Nicolas Uribe.

Milo and Denis did their rendition of it

and suggested I did the same, even
though I didn’t know how to tackle it.
The result is not the one I was after,
there are still certain parts and emotions
that elude me, that I wasn’t able to cap-
ture quite right; but then again I’m only
just learning how to paint in a more sen-
sitive way in which the paint takes the
lead and is way more malleable.
If anything, this was a very good exer-
cise since I was faced with a lot of prob-
lems that I would always avoid; painting
full frontal portraits, even lighting, low
contrast - this portrait forced me to try
and resolve them, to work not around
the issue but work towards it.

Nicolas man if you’re reading this, I hope

I don’t dishonour your amazing work by
putting your name under this painting.
Day 25: ‘Dallas’ Oil on canvas
Trying to push that paint around bet-
ter, build up and sculpt the flesh. Like I
said yesterday it really does feel like I’m
learning how to paint all over again. It
makes so much more sense but it’s con-
fronting; I’ve painted very methodically
all these years and now I’m finally learn-
ing to paint more intuitively, to move the
paint around and let it interact with the
image that’s hiding in there somewhere.
It’s a beautiful feeling, but damn hard to
pursue and catch. Yet when you man-
age to capture a feature or a likeness it
feels more rewarding, truer to itself than Opposite page
by just painting in an outlined way.
‘Dallas’
The person here depicted literally has 14x22cm
no face since it burned off by a high Oil on canvas,
voltage wire, so it was a challenge to try mounted on board
and get those subtle shifts in there.
Oil on canvas - ca. 4 hours
54 55
Day 27: -
Little cheat day today. I started some-
thing new, but the longer I looked at
yesterday’s painting, the more I started
to hate it. I’d been sitting so close to it for
so long it seemed to be looking good,
but once I uploaded the picture I felt I
missed the mark of capturing this man
his features so much that I just couldn’t
let it go. I can make paintings which
aren’t my favourites but who work on
certain levels, but with this one I knew
that I could get much more out of it.
So I reworked it until it felt like I’d gotten
closer to the subject’s sensibilities and
facial particularities.
Oil on canvas - ca. 12 hours

Day 28: ‘Citrus X Sinensis’

Had a crazy busy day today and bare-
ly had any time to paint something. So
here it is, a tiny blurry blood orange
man. I started out with a tiny weird blob-
by head but it didn’t work at all, so in a
final act of desperation I just dragged a
big brush over it.
I noticed that I’m still far away from those
spontaneous loose marks that shape
a face already in the initial couple of
brushstrokes, which only means I have
to keep pushing, keep practicing. It’s a
daunting task but at the same time also
fills me with the thrill of possible future
outcomes. Need to step up my game
so tomorrow it’s back to a good 5-7 fo-
cussed hours.
Oil on canvas - ca. 2 hours
56
‘Brummie’
24x30cm
Oil on canvasboard
Day 29: ‘Brummie’
Tried to combine the two ways of build-
ing op an image I’ve been experiment-
ing with over the past few days. I started
with a rough drawing, blocked in the
darks and mid tones and started the
blobbing in those mid tones and the
lights, pushing and pulling that paint
around until it wrapped around the sub-
ject’s skull. I wanted to stay rather loose,
so you can still see a lot of quick and
spontaneous marks in combination with
those slower, more decisive marks.
Also kept my palette very limited, only 6
colours went in this face, with a touch of
terre vert and English red for the nose
and chin.
Oil on canvasboard - ca. 6 hours
57
Day 30: ‘Gypsy’
One month into the 100heads chal-
lenge! Which called for a little celebra-
tory distortion and warp, of course.
I like natural deformity caused by e.g.
water, opaque surfaces or mirrors. This
face is being reflected on the polished
hood of a car, an image I never could’ve
altered as convincingly as this myself.
Some of you may have seen this work
in progress yesterday during the live
stream with my babe Milo Hartnoll.
Again my palette was reduced for this
painting. In a lot of earlier work I had to
deal with a lot of darks and contrasts,
which I solved by mixing a combination
of certain colours to get those really
deep, black darks. This got to a point
where I felt it to be too much, and I’ve
found that just using pure raw umber
(sometimes mixed with a little terre vert
or cobalt blue) can create beautiful
darks without the contrast being way
too high.
Day 31: ‘Beta’
Worked on this one during the lives-
tream with the amazing Hillary Butter-
worth earlier this evening.
This painting had lots of ups and downs,
a lot of problems that had to be solved
- nevertheless they were interesting
problems to tackle. The face had very
subdued tonalities which made it hard
to let it emerge to the foreground, so
after the first bad layers I lightened the
values and blurred the background
which strengthened the feeling of the
head being lit from the back.
Those decisions seemed to work so I
could reintroduce the blueish greys in
the face without it being pushed back
too much.
Oil on canvasboard - 8 hours

The contrast in this one may seem

rather high but that’s mostly because
the midtones are pretty high in value
in comparison. The warm umber darks
in the yesterday’s portrait are more ap-
parent since the lights are pretty limited.
Just some thoughts for those who are
interested.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 6 hours

Opposite page

‘Beta’
24x30cm
Oil on canvasboard

58 59
Day 32: ‘Nether’
Used a reference from the lovely Hillary
Butterworth today. - A little explanation:
During the painting of this portrait I
stepped way out of my comfort zone.
This painting may not have the same
drama and sense of tragedy like my
usual paintings and may therefore not
appeal to everyone who follows me, but
I’m trying to take a step back in order
to really try the things I’ve only slightly
touched in my last few paintings. I want/
need to properly focus on my use of col-
our, how shadow and light react in rela-
tion to each other, how values shift and
strengthen or diminish certain facial fea-
tures etc - also the application of paint
is something that I want to focus on and
for me runs interwoven with colour.
Now when I’m using these unusual an-
gles, tilts and shifts or extreme circum-
stances in which a face exists, I’m not
only blocking myself from primarily fo-
cussing on those things, I’m also making
it like 5 times as hard for me to study
and better understand them.
That’s why I painted this portrait. In
terms of imagery it’s way simpler than
my usual references, but more difficult
for me cus I’m not used to this. There’s
no room to hide. So I tried to paint as
loosely as possible, tried not to compli-
cate things.
And although the result looks a lot differ-
ent, I’ve learned a great deal by painting
this - also thanks to my wonderful friend
Milo Hartnoll
If you’ve read all of this, thank you.
Oil on canvas - 7 hours
60
Day 33: ‘Trisomy 21’
I was quite displeased with yesterday’s
painting in terms of general aesthetic
outcome. However, I do know it’s not
about that, it’s about the process, about
not only the painterly but also the per-
sonal growth. This challenge has be-
come way more than just paint/draw 100
nice heads, it’s become more of a per-
sonal challenge in which I try to actively
change my painting patterns, learn new
things and actually apply them, whatev-
er the outcome.
I used a reference Milo sent some time
ago in our 404 group chat and even
though it wasn’t an easy ref, it felt much
more liberating to paint than my usu-
al paintings. It felt as if the things I’ve
learned from yesterday’s painting and
the subjects from the last few ones cul-
minated more in this portrait. Painting
this made me realize I might not be as
hopeless as I sometimes think during
this challenge.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 7 hours
61
Day 34: ‘Agent Orange’
Quick blobby baby today since I didn’t
have a lot of time.
The colours were a bitch to get right
because the baby is being preserved
in formaldehyde for at least 2 decades.
I don’t have a lot to say about this por-
trait, it’s more of a quick study of muted
colours.
This head is part of a still born Siamese
twin. Their horrid deformations are a
result of the mother’s exposure to the
chemicals of Agent Orange which was
widely used during the Vietnam War un-
der the US herbicidal warfare program.
Oil on canvas - ca. 2,5 hours

Day 35: ‘Roach’

Really needed to take a small step back
into my comfort zone and do something
I knew I could pull off, to have a notion
again that I can actually paint something
properly. A lot of things I’ve learned
went in this portrait though; colours,
marks, build up etc.
The next couple of days I’m going to
take a brief hiatus from the 100 heads
project. My lovely fellow 404 member
Milo Hartnoll and myself are exhibiting
alongside each other in Italy this march
and we really need to get some paint-
ing done for that show.
I’m still going to 100 so no worries! In
‘Roach’
those couple of days, I’ll do whatever I 24x30cm
can to keep up with the challenge. Very Oil on canvasboard
excited!
Oil on canvasboard - ca 8 hours

62 63
Day 36: ‘Rayburn’
The amazing Dallas Rayburn drew my
crooked head in an intense face swap
so I glitched the ref and painted his.
While working on paintings for the show
in Tales of Art Gallery in Italy I found
some time to paint this, which auto-
matically is head number 36 in the 100
heads project - it also ties in with Dallas’
own project in which he draws the same
picture 100 times.
Two of my 404 babes, Denis and Milo,
also painted and drew him so be sure
to check those out!
Since I’m not good at full frontal blown
out faces this was a challenge for me,
but an interesting one at that. I’m slowly
trying to challenge myself and paint im-
ages I normally wouldn’t choose, in or-
der to learn how to actually paint these
things instead of hiding behind them.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 2 days
64
Day 37: ‘Hoax’
In between the work I’m painting for the
show at Tales of Art Gallery I thought I’d
paint a quick little head. This was how-
ever probably one of the most difficult
paintings I did during this challenge. For
a while now I felt like I needed to deal
with those heavy shadows and con-
trasts, I want to paint what’s hidden in
chiaroscuro. So I guess this is my first
decent attempt at that, even though it’s
a fairly quick painting.
I had to work with a huge amount of
new knowledge crammed in my head
by my lovely 404’ers, search for those
lights in the shadows, deal with reflect-
ed light properly, and with the fact that
the shadows were basically a light mid
tone. So lots to break my head over but
it’s a start!
Oil on canvas
Ca. 9 hours
65
Day 38: ‘Inbred’
Very quick small blobby head to warm
up for the painting me, Milo Hartnoll,
German Tellez and Paolo Psiko are
gonna make for the exhibition in Italy at
Tales of Art Gallery. Each of us are go-
ing to interpret the original painting and
glitch it in our own way, very excited!
This portrait was just some fucking
around – I was drawn to the weird angle
but it started to work against me rather
quickly, so I just rolled with it, loosened
my wrists and went back to brisk, un-
bound marks.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 2,5 hours
- post and a selection of heads!
Day 39: ‘Darkroom’
Note to self: more shadow doesn’t
equal a quicker or easier painting. The
more shadow you have, the more you
gotta make those strongly lit parts work
in order for the entire image not to fall
apart.
Day 40: ‘Partus Mortuus’
Yesterday was the official 1 month anni-
versary of 404 going live, and also the
birthday of my beautiful demigod Denis
Dalesio
We had a 7+ hour google hangout with
the crew yesterday talking and painting,
and I felt compelled to go back to my
sketchbook.
So I painted this gouache spread of
stillborn foetuses being preserved in
formaldehyde. For some reason, likely
because I was only half paying attention
to the painting and was engaged in the
conversations, the gouache didn’t feel
like it was fighting me the entire time.
Be sure to go take a look at the
@404taken page for a beautiful update
Gouache on paper
Ca. 3 hours

I’ve been half-assing the last couple of

portraits because I’m busy painting for
the show. So the next couple of days I’ll
refrain myself from doing these quick
small heads which end up taking a lot
more time than anticipated.
I hated this one right up until the end,
and I’m still not even sure if it works or
whether or not I like it.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 5 hours

66 67
Day 41: ‘Julian’
Worked on this in the first part of a great
stream with my babe Denis Dalesio.
It’s been a while since I’ve properly
painted a head so I had to get back into
it. It’s strange that after a month of in-
tense work and then a small week of not
painting 5-8 hours a day can make your
fingers feel so inexperienced again.
Anyway there are some really good
portraits being made recently, and I’ve
started swapping faces and refs with
other great artists. Today I painted the
beautiful painter Julian Tejera.
It balances on the edge of being over-
worked, had to rework some areas
a couple of times because I couldn’t
seem to capture them, but I’m quite
pleased with some other things. Hope
you like it too man.
Also sorry for the crazy glare!
Oil on canvas
Ca. 7 hours
68
‘Benediction’
24x30cm
Oil on canvas
.
This is one of the paintings that’s gon-
na be exhibited alongside a couple of
portraits and a still life during the glitch
show in Tales of Art Gallery in Italy this
week.
It basically is a glorified study of a sub-
tly glitched hand making a well-known
gesture. It appears frequently through-
out art history and felt more powerful to
me when isolated.
I think I slightly overworked it, and it’s
impossible to take a decent picture of.
I should be able to squeeze in one
more head before leaving for Italy this
friday where I will finally be united with
my babe Milo Hartnoll!
Ca. 2 weeks
69
Day 42: ‘Aetatis Suae’
Detail of a larger painting done specif-
ically for the exhibition ‘Postdigital’ in
Imola, Italy this weekend.
The face is only about 1/4th of the paint-
ing but I thought it could count as one of
the 100 portraits. It is after all a portrait
amirite!
Really not used anymore to these in-
tenser glitches, they feel rigid. Never-
theless some interesting things hap-
pened which gave me some ideas for
future work!
Pictures of the full painting and the set-
up of the exhibition will come this week-
end! Looking forward to hanging my
work alongside the amazing Milo Hart-
noll, German Tellez and Paolo Psiko!
Oil on canvas - ca. 1 week

Day 43: ‘Prepuce’

Quick blobby painting of the blob mas-
ter and my babe Milo erupting from his
fisher’s coat.
I had a really good time painting this,
honestly been a long time since paint-
ing went so smooth and subconscious.
I already addressed in one of my posts
that I avoided painting with yellow for a
long time because I think it’s difficult to
make it work properly. So I felt like this
was the perfect opportunity to go full
chroma and just smear it on mercilessly.
This is the last portrait before I leave for
Italy, might make some quick drawings
or sketches there if I find the time, we’ll ‘Prepuce’
see! 24x30cm
Oil on canvasboard
Oil on canvasboard - ca. 4 hours

70 71
‘Aetatis Suae’ - full painting
50x60 cm
Oil on canvas
. and coherent about this. Thanks again
The final full painting that’s traveling
with me to Italy tomorrow, together with
some other glitched images. They’re
going to be displayed in the group
show ‘Postdigital’ in Tales of Art Gallery.
My brain is tingling with the anticipation
to hang my paintings next to my 404
butterfly Milo Hartnoll and the work of
crazy painters German Tellez and Paolo
Psiko.
This painting is the result of a project
where the four of us reinterpreted a ba-
roque painting that’s hanging in Imola
called ‘Portrait of a Twenty Five year old
Gentleman’ by Bartolomeo Cesi.
The show’s up for little over a month so
if you find yourself in or near Bologna in
that period take a train down to Imola
and go visit our paintings!
Part of the setup from the Postdigital
expo in Imola, Italy - 3 of 7 paintings.
Most of the paintings I make deal with
the human figure, yet for some reason I
felt urged to paint these three paintings.
While setting up the show we noticed
that when these three come together
they convey a sense of the old Flemish
painters, a quality that really struck me.
It took me approx. 5 months and a trip to
Italy for me to realise that.
By dealing with a lot of old masters I
unconsciously processed lots of back-
grounds, flowers, peripheral informa-
tion, which eventually manifested itself
in these paintings. This triptych projects
my sense of a vexed and dysfunctional
72
environment through more objectified
imagery. I should think more about this
so I can actually write something decent
everyone who came by on the opening,
Marco for making it possible and Milo,
German and Paolo for joining me!
Anyone who’s interested in purchasing
can contact Tales of Art Gallery for fur-
ther inquiries.
-
Day 44: ‘Tom’
Late post, slowly easing back into the
heads with a loose portrait study of the
amazing painter Tom van de Wouwer.
The painting got a bit out of hand, like-
ness was lost and I just went with the
portrait as an autonomous painting. I
liked some things that happened and
decided to focus on those.
Tom, sorry I botched your beautiful
likeness, I will for sure paint you again,
properly that is!
Oil on canvas
Ca. 3 hours
73
Day 45: ‘Denis the Menace’
Fairly quick portrait of one of the most
beautiful people I know, my goddess
and über babe Denis Dalesio.
Scratched some lines in there because
he’s keen on them and is experimenting
with it in his own work, so it felt like they
would make an interesting addition in
his portrait. Love you hon.
Apologies for the insane glare, it’s hard
to photograph these wet alla prima
paintings under fluorescent lights.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 6 hours
Opposite page
‘Alba’
24x30cm
Oil on canvas
74
Day 46: ‘Alba’
Portrait of Alba Miocev in her most nat-
ural state.
I nagged about pictures with certain
lights but in the end I stuck with this very
spontaneous and candid photo which
had horrible lighting but felt like it repre-
sented her best.
Painting this made me realise a few im-
portant things in what I’m looking for in
a painting. Some areas might seem a bit
overworked but some things started to
click in this painting.
Oil on canvas - ca. 8 hours
75
Day 47: ‘Michael’
Quick wee blobber of me dear Scottish
mate Michael Monaghan innit!
Went through some bad stages with
this one, yet the way I approached this
painting was very liberating and inter-
esting. I just started very blobby from
the start, and just moulded the face.
Built op paint, react to it, scrape away,
destroy, add, reassess.
Things happened here I’d like to keep
building on and experimenting with, cus
it feels like I’m learning and doing things
which I’ve been searching for for quite
a while.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 4 hours

Day 48: ‘Patrick’

Portrait of my dear Milwaukee friend
Patrick Stromme who’s either in agony
or ecstasy – whichever you like!
Really enjoyed painting those clear
glasses. Kinda wanna have a second
and better shot at them. I’m slowly start-
ing to feel freer with the paint, yet simul-
taneously be more in control over it.
Since I’ve reduced my palette to about
12 to 14 colours - which for the Zorn us-
ers out there may seem like way too
much - I’m slowly but steadily under-
standing my colours better, learning
‘Patrick’
how to stretch them to reach different
24x30cm
atmospheres, temperatures and pre- Oil on canvas
dominant colour-schemes in certain im-
ages.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 6 hours

76 77
Day 49: ‘Caroline’
Very quick painting of the colour queen
Caroline Ji during her stream with Milo.
Had a lot of issues with this one; very
obscured light in ref, skin tones look su-
per dirty when photographed, this that.
Might clean it up a bit later but decided
to leave it here for now.
I couldn’t really push the paint in the
ways I wanted but nevertheless learned
some things while doing it.
Caro girl I’m gonna grace your face with
a much better painting for sure!
Oil on canvas
Ca. 4 hours
In other exciting news, for those of you
who haven’t seen/heard/read it yet our
first podcast is online! Link is in my bio
as well as the bio on the 404 page! *
*Note: This is an ongoing project where
a changing selection of the collective
members record long talks in which we
tackle a number of subjects. The link to
the pilot episode is in the bibliography.
78
Day 50 + 51: ‘Cheese Puffs’
My god I’m halfway through!
It feels like I’ve been painting and draw-
ing heads forever!
I’m getting antsy to continue my larger
work, but at the same time I’m eager to
see what other new things will come my
way through this challenge.
It was a long time since I made a draw-
ing, and since the initial idea of this chal-
lenge was to make drawings I figured
I’d make a proper one.
Did a spread of the beautiful human
being Milo Hartnoll who I’m incredibly
honoured for to be able to call my close
friend. He means the world to me and
I already learned so damn much from
him - in painting but also in life itself. I
love you man.
Graphite and gouache in moleskine
Ca. 7 hours
Day 52: ‘Hillary’
Started a painting of Detroit’s finest,
Hillary Butterworth today on stream with
the amazing Michael Monaghan but had
time to kill before that, so decided to do
a little warm up drawing of her in the
meantime.
I’m slowly starting to get out of drawing
what I really like, which is approaching
it in a painterly way combined with line-
work.
The painting of Hillary will be finished
and posted tomorrow!
Graphite and gouache in moleskine
79
Day 53: ‘Hillary Again’ Day 54: ‘Valentin’
Worked on this portrait in yesterday’s Quick and dirty little portrait of the in-
livestream with the Scottish hunk Mi- credible painter Valentin Fischer.
chael Monaghan. Had an off day, scraped down large
Added and changed a few things after parts of this painting about 4 times.
the stream ended and decided to leave There are some elements which I really
it there. like, but I couldn’t push the paint around
I feel like I’m slowly starting to push my in the right way to capture the general
paint in ways that’s getting a little clos- atmosphere I was after.
er to what I’m trying to achieve - which
in itself is a very instinctive and an intu- I felt the potential and had certain no-
it thing, and therefore hard to put into tions in my head but my hands couldn’t
words. follow. Sorry I wasn’t able to capture
your beauty Valentin.
Sometimes however, which is happen- Oil on canvas
ing more and more in the recent por- Ca. 4 hours
traits, I touch something I really like.
Even though it’s just a couple of marks,
or two colours which I intuitively put next
to each other and surprisingly seem to
work.
It’s these little things that cause a lot
of encouragement to keep pushing, to
keep trying.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 7 hours

Also @404taken has reached over 3k

followers! So I wanna thank everyone
who’s been taking an interest in us, our
work, the community and everything
else we’re setting up. Lots of love to all
of you.

80 81
 Day 56: ‘Beacon’
Been a couple of days since I painted
so thought I’d ease myself back into it
with a blobby little portrait.

I felt really attracted to this image and

had a feeling I could do some interest-
ing things with it. Nevertheless it put up
quite a fight, but I think I got back on top
a little.
Some very intriguing things happened
while putting the paint down, which
sparked my long love for a few old
English painters like Walter Sickert and
Harold Gilman, so I decided to go with it
and blob the paint on.
Oil on canvas - ca. 4 hours

57/100
Quick little painting today.
I’m slowly noticing my brushstrokes are
Day 55: ‘Blue Ruin’
starting to get more analogue with my
I’m not my normal self the past time, and
thoughts and deeper intentions, and ac-
probably still won’t be for the next cou-
tually translating interestingly to canvas.
ple of weeks, so I apologise for being
It’s still something that’s going to change
so haphazard with my posts.
a lot, but I’m doing things of which I wan-
na keep certain elements, to push and
Since everyone was so excited about
explore them further.
my drawings I decided to draw some
more, but this time trying out some
On a side note, I started this challenge
new things. The focus wasn’t as much
by intuitively giving each portrait a title,
on end result, I was curious to see if a
deeming them higher than the studies
possible relationship existed between a
and experiments they are.
selection of images that triggered me,
It was starting to feel a bit forced and
and if that could manifest itself through
perhaps even contemptuous, so I’m
composing them into one drawing.
gonna let go of that.
I still don’t know.
Oil on canvas - ca. 3 hours
Graphite in moleskine - 6 hours

82 83
58/100
Did this fairly quick digital study be-
cause I feel like I’m at an impasse in my
work.
I don’t particularly like this, but it was an
interesting exercise to do.
I’ve always been too tight, too strict with
my painting. During this challenge I ex-
perimented with letting go of that with
mixed results - which is perfectly nor-
mal. Yet I feel like it’s (finally) restricting
me too much, and there’s a need to let
go, in order for my work to be able to
grow.
There’s a sensibility in the last few por-
traits that I want to cultivate.
So dodgy, perhaps even shitty paintings
may follow, but hang in there with me!
84
59/100
Started this painting of the crazy Mosta-
fa Darwish yesterday on the livestream
with Milo Hartnoll.
We had some technical difficulties (bad
internet connection from both our parts)
and when that was sorted out some
existential painting-related difficulties
– questioning the decisions we kept
making. But we both managed to pull
through.
Because of the technical issues though
we missed a lot of your questions, so
sorry for that. If any questions remain
unanswered don’t hesitate to slide into
our DM’s! Also a big thanks to everyone
who sent their pictures, I didn’t expect
such a response! Obviously I could only
paint one yesterday but there are some
very interesting ones which I just have
to paint. So keep ‘em coming!
Ca. 7 hours
85
60/100
Painted my girl Nico Rondelez.
Some interesting things happened in
this painting.
I threw overboard almost everything I
know about building up a painting and
decided to spend a couple of days on
this one.

It went through a few stages with this

one - started out how I would intuitive-
ly begin a painting, which bothered me
very quickly already.
So I blobbed in the face again, changed
the background, changed the face
again, let go of the reference until inter-
esting things started to happen.
I was really trying to push the paint
around, searching the colour relations,
finding the shapes in that.

There’s honestly too much thought pro-

cess behind this one, too much to put
in here.
What I know is that I tapped into things
I feel like I need to keep exploring in
order to paint like I want to paint. It’s a
slow process, and I’m incredibly lucky I
have the amazing friends from the 404
to help me in this fucking weird and dif-
ficult search.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 5 days

‘Nico’
24x30cm
Oil on canvas

86 87
61/100
Quick little blobby study of my dumpling
Nico.
Tried to stay as loose as possible, but
over-rendered the glasses and eyes a
bit so took them down, built them up
again etc until it looked a bit messy.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 3 hours
- are painting or have painted each other!
62/100
First portrait of the pictures you all sent.
. off became interesting and more impor-
Thank you so much Spenser Bower for
sending me this picture of you with that
luscious light! It was incredibly fun to
paint this one.
63/100
Two thirds of the #100heads challenge
complete!
Brawny picture of England’s grime babe
S. Vela
Thanks for the refs Choof!
He sent me this picture as response on
my question to you all for pics of your
beautiful faces to be painted. However
it’s turning into a sort of face swap be-
tween me, him, Denis and Milo who all
On a technical note, I scraped down
this painting a few times, and in the end
kinda steered away from likeness. The
atmosphere the angle and lighting give
tant to me.
I’ve also fallen in love with alizarin and
Winsor yellow. Ahh!
Oil on canvasboard - ca. 7 hours

Starting to feel more liberated and loos-

ened when I paint. It can stab you in the
back before you know it but other times
you can ride it all the way to the blobby
end.
Thank you all for sending your faces,
I’m loving the things I receive way more
than I thought! Y’all have some intrigu-
ing pictures!
Please don’t hesitate to send me more,
keep ‘em coming! Still got 38 portraits
to do.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 5 hours

Opposite page

‘Choof’
30x30cm
Oil on canvasboard

88 89
64/100
Thanks to Ruthie Cañada for the ob-
scure ref!
Didn’t have much time to paint today
and I wanted to do something with this
particular imagine I received (among
many others, thanks again to everyone
who sent one! Don’t stop!) so I figured
the best way to translate it was through
drawing.
I don’t know why I place certain things
together in a drawing. They’re mostly
just very intuitive things and ideas on
which I then try to build in order to cre-
ate an interesting composition.
In this case I felt intrigued by the lines in
the background of the picture; I wanted
to extrapolate on that by putting certain
graphic and mechanical marks in there.
Graphite in moleskine - 2 hours
-
65/100
Thanks to my blade babe Jan Delbae-
re for the funky ref! Last thing you did
before going to bed, last thing I look at
before going to bed!
Finished this painting while livestream-
ing with CT’s finest, Denis Dalesio.
There were some technical issues so I
went on solo. Thanks to everyone who
kept watching and was able to endure
my incoherent rants.
Also thanks to Tom for giving me some
last minute advice on the shadows. The
next cad orange eyebrows are for you!
Oil on canvas - ca. 5 hours
90
66/100
Got this lovely ref sent to me by Con-
stanza Veppo, thanks again!
So I miscounted and this painting
only marks the 2/3 completion of the
#100heads challenge. I’m yearning to
paint something else, but no way back!
Interesting things are happening, even
though it’s becoming increasingly more
challenging to stay focused.
I absolutely loved the red, orange-yel-
lowy light in this picture and without re-
ally realising went super high chroma.
It’s one of the first times in years that I’ve
pulled open the colour registries so far
and I damn love it.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 6 hours
-
67/100
Thanks to Abby Aultman for the funky
blown out ref!
Didn’t have a lot of time today so blurt-
ed out a quick blobby one - about 2,5
hours.
I love working with these blown out
flashbulb references, it creates a lot of
possibilities concerning chroma, satu-
ration and shadow play. Slowly learning
more about what I can and want to do
with an abundance of light, rather than
cloaking everything in dark shadows.
Oil on canvas
91
68/100
Big thanks to my love Wouter Haelman
for the ref of him looking disturbed in
Düsseldorf.

Started out with large flat shapes, block-

ing in the light and midtone, since they
were the dominant parts of the face.
Once the crude facial structures were
laid down, I increasingly added more
tones to slowly build up the skin.
The background was way too flat and
dull so decided to repaint it while focus-
sing on the brushstrokes to get a better
feeling of the metal structure behind
him.

After these things were done it was the

smaller brushes time to shine and to
start blobbing vigorously.
This isn’t how I would normally go about
with a blobby painting, but the refer-
ence lent itself to this approach, so I
rolled with it.

I quite like how the hat turned out but

it was impossible to photograph without
the crazy glare, so I added a very weird
angled shot in which the brushstrokes
and tonalities of the hat are more visi-
ble.
Oh and also, the 100heads project offi-
cially reached over 10k heads, so a big
thanks to everyone who did/is doing/
started the challenge! Love you all! 404
is one proud momma.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 7 hours
Opposite page
‘Sophie’
18x24cm
Oil on canvasboard
69/100
Thank you Sophie for this crazy red
blasted reference
Fairly quick one today because I have
a lot of preparation for my small solo
show in Almacen this weekend. Please
feel free to come take a look!
Basically only used alizarin, Winsor yel-
low, raw umber, cad red and a tiny bit
of flake white for this one. It was a very
weird reddish pink which was hard to
mix, but I boosted that alizarin crimson
to the max.
Oil on canvas - ca. 4 hours

92 93
70/100
Thank you Joram for the lovely atmos-
pheric references, soon I’ll paint one of
the others as well!

Made this quick drawing yesterday

while waiting for the people to arrive at
the opening of my small solo show in
Ostend.
I’ll be there tonight and tomorrow as
well! There will be live vinyl sets and I’ll
be live painting!
COME ON BY! - 18:00-22:00
Graphite in moleskine - 1,5 hours

71/100
Big thanks to Max for this very nice ref!
.
Finally got back to painting after my
small solo show this weekend, and boy
did I feel it. Luckily I had this super inter-
esting reference to paint from!
A lot of things happened in this paint-
ing, but I tried to keep it together with
the recently gained knowledge from my
gorgeous 404 friends and some really
interesting shop talk with Tom van de
Wouwer.

I’m just now tapping into the vast ae-

ther of colour, temperatures, their ev-
er-changing relativity, light, and it’s
damn intimidating yet also very intrigu-
ing. Be prepared for some rough paint-
ings soon, still 29 to go which is a lot of
‘Max’
room to mess things up!
18x24cm
Oil on canvas - ca. 8 hours Oil on canvasboard

94 95
72/100
Thanks Eva Teetaert for this reference
with such crazy lighting and colours!
This turned out to be a damn hard ref
to work from. The colours were so in-
tense and went from pure ultramarine to
bright yellow. I lost the likeness a bit but
once I embraced that fact I really had
some fun with just putting marks and
shaping the face.
I tried to form as much as possible with
little information, putting down just a few
marks for the mouth and basically just
some light and darks in and around the
eyes.
It for sure was a challenge to work
with these colours, nevertheless it was
a very good exercise in temperature -
how the purple/pink shadow goes from
a cool to a warm purple, with hints of red
to the shard of light hitting the face.
Oil on canvas
Ca. 9 hours
96
73/100
Big blue thanks to Gaëlle Mistiaen and
her insanely blue bathroom light fixture.
This painting fought me quite a bit be-
cause the shadows were so obscured
yet very high in chroma, which made
for weird shapes in the mouth and right
eye.
The lightest part was nearly a pure
bright turquoise but since I don’t have
that and mixing it only gave me very dull
and low chroma turquoises I went wild
with the ultramarine.
It was my first time painting on an am-
persand panel, which was very interest-
ing actually. I gessoed it beforehand so
the paint would have more surface to
stick to and to break on. Once I blocked
in the large shapes I started having fun
with smaller brushes and blobbed and
scraped around until some interesting
things started happening.
I could barely photograph this portrait
because the glare was so intense, plus
a lot of the detail in the brushstrokes
and scratches are lost, but yeah.
Oil on panel
Ca. 6 hours
97
74/100
An Claes, thank you for the ref!

After a failed and scraped down paint-

ing I found little time during this busy
weekend so I did this pretty quick draw-
ing of An. She’s also participating in
the #100heads challenge so be sure to
peep her work!
Graphite in moleskine - 2 hours

75/100
Thank you so much for this lovely refer-
ence Ida Hundertmark!

The light in this pic casted some strange

shadows and I slowly got a little away
from the ref in terms of rendering and
representation.
I liked this wonk so I went with it and
continued building up the painting - it’s
what us gals in the 404 sometimes re-
fer to as ‘a good wonk’, where you play
with deformation a bit to enhance the
poignancy of an image without it be-
coming grotesque.

I’m also slowly falling in love with paint-

ing on panel, like how buttery you can
apply paint, let it slide, push it around,
mmhhh. Going to paint some more on it
the next few days till I run out!
Oil on panel
Ca. 7 hours
‘Ida’
18x24cm
Oil on panel

98 99
 76/100
Thank you Clara-Lane Lens for the gor-
geous ref! So many interesting things
happening in there.

This one got away from me a little. I

started nit-picking and fixing little things
in the rendering, something I’m very
weary of. I lost some interesting parts
and a certain freshness in the paint ap-
plication, but then again some other in-
teresting things happened.
Likeness got lost a bit but nevertheless
learned a great deal with this portrait.

It’s the third time painting on panel and

I’m still figuring out how to get out of it
what I want. I prepped this panel with a
coat of clear gesso so I’d have a little
more friction and a slightly rougher sur-
face to paint on.
So far I liked it better to paint on a base
coat of oil paint as I did with the previ-
ous painting.

Clara is a painter herself so there was

a bit more pressure haha. She makes
some intriguing work herself so be sure
to check her out!
Oil on panel
Ca. 8 hours

‘Clara-Lane’
18x24cm
Oil on panel

100 101
77/100
It’s 404 o’clock!
Started this as a very quick sketch but
got carried away with it. Started adding
more depth and shapes, to then realise
the page wasn’t balanced at all.
So I added the clock and the writing,
some more information in the portrait et
voila.
Back to painting now!
Graphite in moleskine - 5 hours
102
78/100
Thanks again to Joram for his lovely
refs!
This portrait went through a few phases.
Colours didn’t work, issues with hues
and light in the shadows, scraping, re-
building.
I tried to draw more with the paint, letting
brushstrokes build up the image. This is
something I’ve been searching for a few
years now; that balance between flat
fields or colour and brushstrokes.
A balance that’s very difficult to find,
and which I’m ever so slowly learning to
handle.
Now, as some of you may or may not
have noticed, the consistency by which
I’ve been posting has been rather ir-
regular lately. This is because I’m tap-
ping into things that cannot be solved
or thoroughly researched in just one
quick sitting. I reached a point where
the things I paint are not for the sake
of just banging them out anymore, but
rather have become an extension of my
personal work. So it’s only fair to myself
I treat them as such, and that I actual-
ly use this opportunity to try and let my
work grow. This challenge has had its
benefits for sure in terms of experimen-
tation, expanding my paint vocabulary,
getting closer to what and how I want
to paint.
I’m going to continue this challenge,
up until the 100th portrait smeared with
blood, sweat and tears. However, I’m
going to start taking my time with these
portraits, so hang in there beautiful peo-
ple!
Oil on panel - ca. 9 hours
103
79/100
Quick loose drawing of Abby Aultman.
For the last week or so I’ve been work-
ing on and off on a larger double por-
trait of a friend of mine.
It’s been a while since I’ve had to take
proportionate decisions about a paint-
ing, since most of these portraits were
pretty straightforward. So I’m taking my
time with it. Trying things out, failing, re-
building. Should be done soon!
In the meantime, I try to make some
smaller drawings, like this one.
Graphite - gouache in moleskine
2 hours
We’ve been a little slow down at 404
but we’re picking up again soon!
Image:
See page 29
104
80+81/100
Thanks to one of my dearest friends
Wouter for this weird, funky picture!
Like I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve
been working on this painting for about
2 weeks now; putting it aside for a few
days to paint other portraits, then work-
ing on it for a day or 2, until I managed
to finish it.
Most portraits for the challenge are fair-
ly small, with this one I went a couple
sizes up to 40x40cm.
There’s a lot going on in this painting,
lots of information, shapes, temperature
shifts, and some of the brightest colours
I’ve used to date.
I’ve had to tackle quite a few things in
this painting. I’m slowly - make that pret-
ty rapidly - falling in love with flashbulb
photography and the atmospheres it
creates. Being overly lit doesn’t equal
an easy interpretation of the reference,
not at all. The colours take on weird
tones, shadows become almost illogical
and shapes are shifting.
The background got scraped and re-
painted about 5 times, searching at first
for an interesting rendering of the infor-
mation in the ref, to then shift towards
an urge to abstract it and handle it more
painterly.
This painting incorporates quite a few
things I want my personal work to em-
body, to grow towards. Painting it got
me excited, and even though I strug-
gled with translating a lot of the visual
data, it triggered a lot of intriguing ideas
for future work.
Oil on canvas - 1,5 weeks
105
82/100
Quick portrait of an old friend.
I like odd lighting, what can I say?
This one’s not really a selfie since I
took this picture myself a few years ago
when Rein and I were sharing a house.
I’ve had it lingering around forever in
my reference material maps and came
across it the other day; so obviously I
had to paint it. Most of these referenc-
es are old, strange, obscured and funny
photographs saved from various sourc-
es like movies, series, books and the
internet. “Is there an image of a ladle in
there as well?” There is not. However
there are numerous images of cats and
people falling.
Oil on panel
Ca. 4,5 hours
- 86/100
83+84/100
Thanks to Marieke Druiven for the ref of
her and her friend.
I don’t really know what’s happening
here. All I know is that I wanted to draw
the arms and go from there.
Faces got erased, rebuilt, graphite
smeared open, erased, drawn linear,
etc until I had enough of it.
This drawing gave me an urge to draw
limbs though, too bad they’re not in the
immediate vicinity of a head.
Graphite in moleskine
Ca. 3 hours
106
85/100
Thanks Nate DeRidder, your ref kicked
my ass big time.
Late post tonight, it’s been an eventful
evening. Went through a lot of stages
with this one, which in my temper I for-
got to photograph. Started out super
flat, dull, then went too high contrast, got
lost in rendering, completely botched it.
What you see now is the result of me
giving in to my frustrations, scraping
most of the paint away and slapping
on some new paint in a frenzied haze.
It’s the most interesting thing that hap-
pened with this portrait and took about
20 minutes. Hooray for hard work.
Oil on canvas - 7 hours
-
Working out some ideas - which I now
know don’t work.
I’m not counting the cluster of obscured
people as heads, even though they’re
the most interesting thing happening in
the entire drawing. They’re originally a
bunch of very blurry scientists, but I like
them more as the aliens they turned out
to be I’m currently working on a larger
painting; the last few portraits gave me
some interesting ideas worth pursuing,
so my apologies for posting so irreg-
ularly. Like I said before already I’ve
reached a critical point where I need
to work certain things out. They tie in
with the challenge but I just can’t pro-
duce portraits anymore for the sake of
it. Hang in there with me!
107
 87/100
Thanks Caroline for the lovely ref!
Slowly learning how to manipulate the
paint how I want it to be, brush marks
are settling, getting a slight grip on sug-
gestion and less-is-more in terms of ren-
dering information.
Also starting to feel more and more
comfortable with panel, so much so that
I’ve started prepping my canvasses to
mimic the smooth surfaces.
Oil on panel - ca. 8 hours
108
88/100 - ‘R.Mutt’
Attempting to apply the things I’ve
learnt during this challenge on larger,
more extensive paintings.
I feel as if I’ve stumbled upon a direction
my work is moving towards - a direction
which combines my past work and what
I’ve been doing for the last 5 months,
accumulating in enthralling imagery.
This imagery is what I’m currently ana-
lysing through these paintings. So far
it’s as fascinating as it is frighteningly
unknown.
Oil on canvas - ca. 3 days
40x50cm
Image:
See page 15
Opposite page
‘Caroline’
18x24cm
Oil on panel
109
89/100
Quick self-portrait - creeping in my stu-
dio
Busy with larger and more extensive
paintings, I should paint a few little por-
traits in the meantime though.
Graphite in moleskine
2 hours

90/100
I don’t know why I’m suddenly so drawn
to greyhounds, especially because I’m
a dauntless cat lover by heart.

It’s pretty coincidental that I came

across the images used for this draw-
ing and the recent painting of a dog, but
they made me notice a profound beauty
in greyhounds. Paintings of animals are
a dangerous thing because they can ‘Boy’
become crazy tacky in the blink of an Graphite in Moleskine
eye. That’s why I avoided painting and sketchbook
drawing animals for a long time. Yet it’s
like these dogs lend themselves better
to being translated to paper or canvas.
Or maybe the shift in my imagery has
changed the way I look at certain things,
sharpened my interest in different
things. Anyway I’m just rambling.
Graphite in moleskine
Ca. 6 hours

110 111
91/100
Quick portrait of my girl Nico.
Don’t really know what I’m doing lately
so just gotta keep working right!
Camera had some troubles with captur-
ing the dull purples and bright yellows
so I’m sorry for the bad picture.
Oil on panel
Ca. 6 hours

92/100
When you are in doubt
draw cats creeping through the house
and write a haiku

Also, a seal
Graphite in moleskine
5 hours

‘Nightcrawlers’
Graphite in Moleskine
sketchbook

112 113
‘Self Portrait with Yellow Watering Can’
40x40cm
Oil on canvas

My imagery is slowly evolving, growing.

I don’t wanna paint deformed and dra-
matic old master interpretations indefi-
nitely.
One thing the 100heads challenge - in
particular the selfies I painted - made
clear is that I want, perhaps even need,
a certain intimacy in my work. A person-
al poignancy.
I want to reflect on my surroundings
more, as to better understand them, and
subsequently better understand myself.
Even if that concept remains abstracted.

Given the fact that this is just the start of

a hazy and exploratory period, some of
you may not like where I’m going, which
is fine. What I’m doing right now, I feel is
important. Necessary, as they’re possi-
ble foundations for years of work.
Also this makes 93/100, nearly there!
Ca. 6 days

‘Self Portrait with Yellow Watering Can’

Detail
40x40cm
Oil on canvas

Full image:
See page 24

114 115
94/100
Graphite on Steinbach paper
40x29,7cm

It’s been a few years since I’ve drawn on

something larger than my a5 moleskine.
The recent drawings my two babes
Denis Dalesio and Hillary Butterworth
did really made me curious to draw on a
larger scale again.

My sketchbook is still sacred, but I’m

probably going to draw on this size
more often in the near future. Gotta get
some decent paper though because
this Steinbach is gross. I need that thick
smooth paper so I can pack in those
darks with my 9B graphite stick.
Ca. 2 days

95/100
Little drawing of my Dudzeelse muse
Wouter.
20-something high life in kitty paradise
Graphite in moleskine - 7 hours

116 117
96/100
Quick study of a skull from life. A lot of
things aren’t working and need chang-
ing, but quite pleased with some parts.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve
painted from life so I’ll use that as an ex-
cuse for the inaccuracy. Also sorry for
being so absent in my posting, had a
very busy week.

A few of the recent paintings I’ve done

are being exhibited during the Gentse
Feesten in the NEST-building, and I had
the absolute pleasure of having Patrick
Stromme and his wife Michelle over at
my house for a few days. It was surreal
having them sit in my garden, coming all
the way from Milwaukee in the US of A.
Oil on panel
Ca. 6 hours

97/100
‘Russian Sleepover’

I’ve had this picture in my archives for

over 7 years and decided to draw part
of it. No idea what’s happening here but
I’m really into the downright weird and
unsettling atmosphere. Sadly it was al-
most impossible to take decent pictures
because of the dense graphite.
Graphite in moleskine - 2 days

118 119
 98/100
Tiere der Hölle - Ertrunken über Nacht
Slowly getting back into my studio and
painting. The last week or two I’ve been
rendered close to motionless by this
heatwave. One of the few things I can
do in a darkened house is drawing,
hence the growing amount of drawings
lately.
I’m working on three paintings right now
but I’m writing intensely on my disser-
tation which has to be handed in soon.
So I’ll be posting a bit less the next few
weeks.
In just three weeks something very ex-
citing is happening - the August project
- keep your eyes peeled!
Graphite in moleskine - 3 hours
120
99/100
So close, so incredibly close. I can feel
the end, taste it!
I haven’t been that productive in the stu-
dio lately since I’m finishing up my mas-
ter thesis. For anyone interested, the
entire dissertation deals with self-reflec-
tion; an elaborate analysis of the ways
my views on my own work, painting, art
and life in general are changing.
An important part of that shift happened
through this challenge, through my
beautiful friends in the 404, through all
of you who are reading this.
Hang in there with me, number 100 is
coming up!
Portrait of a dad napping with his daugh-
ter
Graphite in moleskine - 2 days
121
100/100
‘Calibrating Sensibilities’
60x60cm
Oil on canvas
My god I made it. After 9 months of
blood, sweat and tears I painted over
100 portraits. I honestly don’t know what
to feel right now. Relief? Pining? Per-
haps an intense gratification for all the
things I’ve learned along the way.
I couldn’t have done it without my dear-
est of companions over at the 404 HQ,
and especially not without all of you; the
ones reading this, the ones support-
ing me through all of this! 
Thank you
all for bearing with me, for coping with
my thoughts, concerns and doubts on a
near daily basis.
The images I’m painting now are get-
ting closer to what I truly want to paint.
Over the past three quarters of a year
I’ve made striders bigger than I ever
did, and for the first time I feel confident
about the possibilities that lay ahead.
There will be changes, there will be fu-
ture doubts, but that’s part of it; part of
the simultaneous beauty and hardship
of painting.
Ca. 4 weeks
Bless you, and goodnight.
122
Instalment III
“Les formes s’effaçaient et n’étaient plus qu’un rêve,
Une ébauche lente à venir,
Sur la toile oubliée, et que l’artiste achève
Seulement par le souvenir.”
- Charles Baudelaire14
The 404-collective is meeting up for the first time in real life this August, right
here in the city center of Ghent. Me and my fellow collective members were
invited to join forces in a paint residency where a small documentary will be
made about us. We’ll be filmed from dusk till dawn while we’re eating, painting,
smoking, drinking, exchanging ideas, talking about art and life. The residency
includes all 6 of the founding members: myself, Milo Hartnoll, Denis Dalesio,
Hillary Butterworth, Patrick Stromme and Michael Monaghan.
Milo is a sensitive yet brilliant and intelligent painter, Denis is an amazing
painter with a great sense of humour, Hillary is a shy yet incredibly talented
artist who has changed my perception on drawing radically, Patrick is an un-
believably energetic and passionate artist and person, and Michael is very
down to earth, but still has a very fine sense of humour and interesting insights
in painting. All forming a big and important part of my life, they have taught me
more than I could possibly fathom.
There’s so much similarities and differences between all of us, but in the right
places for the whole to create a positive, stimulating and interesting dynamic,
which shows to the people around us as well.
Ever since becoming an official collective and getting our thoughts and work
out in the world, people have been catching on. Collectives generate follow-
ers, likeminded people who find inspiration or solace in what we’re doing – in
just a few months our digital following has grown to over five thousand follow-
ers.
The diary entries I wrote down during the days of painting and drawing these
100 portraits form an arch through the multitude of changes I went through in
the past 9 months. The narrative changes not only visually but also conceptu-
ally throughout the entries. In the first part the focus is laying more heavily on
the break from darkness, how light and the intricate ways it wraps around ob-
jects and people become a more important factor in my work (as a reference
see day 80+81 where I talk about the development of light and colour in that
specific painting). This gradually shifts towards a more technical oriented way
of reflecting on paintings, which exists analogously with the growing concern
and attention to the technical aspect of my work. I’ve become more intrigued
14
Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, “Une Charogne”, 90.
123
and attentive towards different ways to build up an image, to shape surround- This entire thesis is an attempt at a structured translation of these new sen-
ings, how to handle the medium of paint. Near the end of the entries the sibilities, of how they came into existence, how they tie together with the ex-
nature of the inscriptions become more reflective and contemplative – it’s in panding and flourishing of my artistic self, and the subsequent calibrating of
these last few months that my work is tapping into atmospheres and concepts that artistic self – an intimate research into new ways of accuracy.
I’ve been searching for a long time.
In the last 30 days it became apparent that the things I want to paint were no
longer possible to accomplish in single sittings; wanting and needing more
time to make more extensive paintings, to be able to properly research themes
and imagery that intrigued me started being paramount. Most paintings were
done in roughly 2 to 9 hours and in one or multiple sittings spread throughout
the day. The approximations of time spent on each painting are estimates, this
due to the fact that while painting I often lose track of time. Now in these last
paintings, the decision to take more time for a painting was one that I started
to take more frequently.
One of the triggers that yielded this gradual change was that people who fol-
low me on Instagram started sending me reference pictures of themselves. I
had painted my collective members and a few befriended painters before this,
but suddenly people I never even heard of sent me their mugshots, often in
the surroundings of their own homes, giving me a peek into the possible lives
these strangers lived. It was a sort of tinder of references in the end, swiping
through the pictures until an image came along that intrigued me and which I
subsequently needed to paint. Nonetheless, it made for an interesting vigour
and change in imagery.

It was a vague period altogether, since what I was experiencing – being those
changes in point of view – combined with all the new things I was painting
made for a very murky overall sensibility. The 100 heads project, which start-
ed out as a break from my substantial work, started flowing together with that
actual substantial work, slowly becoming an amalgamation of everything I’m
working towards for the past few years.
My entire artistic practice began to shift, and I understood a recalibration was
in order. This wasn’t a single decisive moment, but a growing lingering thought
all through these months. With the transformation and conversion of my prac-
tice, this calibration started happening autonomously; it was needed in order
to maintain what I was doing, and to gain a new accuracy in what I wanted to
depict. Once I noticed this and reflected upon the notion of a recalibration I
could consciously consider and shape it.

A new accuracy was necessary in order to let my evolving sensibilities con-

cerning my imagery come into their own. These recent and intriguing senti-
ments were rumbling through the bone arena that is my skull and needed to
find their way to the canvas.

124 125
 Epilogue

During the course of the previous months I delved into these various ways
of research and inquiry, used them in order to seek an accuracy in words.
Words of how I’m evolving as a painter, as an artist, as a person. Looking for
contemporary forms of correspondence and transmission of feelings, notions
and fluctuating ideas, I wrote them down in ways best translating the abstruse
nature of these feelings and ideas.
While writing and doing research, I happened upon a term which I would later
find having an interestingly close correlation to the sensibilities I’m moving
through: yūgen.
The word yūgen stems from the isles of Japan, where it functions as an im-
portant concept within the vast gamut of traditional aesthetics. Having multiple
meanings – depending on the context the word is used in – the one that struck
me most is that of a profound, mysterious sense of beauty of the universe, and
in extent, the sad and gloomy beauty of human suffering.
The origins of the word however find their roots in ancient Chinese philosoph-
ical texts, where yūgen was synonymous with dim, deep, mysterious.
These are terms that lay very close to the atmospheres I’m attracted to, and
subsequently am starting to explore in my work.
A sense of strangeness, gloomy interiors, eerie atmospheres of figures bathing
in darkened or brightly lit rooms – the curious beauty within that. I’m beginning
to find these emotions in more subtly layered imagery, a pictorial language in
which suggestiveness and psychological aspects find their way outward.
The work I made in the last three-quarters of a year didn’t come to life with this
concept in mind. Nevertheless it can be a working title as a means to keep
searching, to base further work on, to keep gradually evolving.

I’d like to thank my mentor, Anna Luyten, for her key insights in shaping this
thesis, my fellow 404-collective members Denis Dalesio, Milo Hartnoll, Hillary
Butterworth, Michael Monaghan and Patrick Stromme for supporting and in-
spiring me throughout this journey, my parents, Nico Rondelez for her love
and support, Giovanni Bigler for all his technical expertise and design insights,
Nicolás Uribe for being the amazing painter he is, and everyone else who
encouraged me. Thank you.

126 127
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130 131
 Appendix

In this digital file the other 72 paintings and drawings made during the 100
head project will be included. In the printed version only the selection through-
out the text will be part of this thesis.

Day 1 Day 2

Day 4

Day 3

132 133
Day 5 Day 6
Day 9 Day 11

Day 12

Day 8

Day 7
Day 13

134 135
Day 14 Day 15 Day 19 Day 20

Day 18
Day 16 Day 21 Day 22

136 137
Day 23
Day 30

Day 28
Day 24

Day 32 Day 33
Day 26
Day 27

138 139
 Day 40

Day 34 Day 36
Day 39

Day 42

Day 41
Day 37 Day 38

140 141
 Day 50 + 51

Day 42
Day 49

Day 44

Day 53

Day 52

Day 45 Day 47

142 143
Day 54
Day 59 Day 61
Day 56

Day 58

Day 64

Day 62
Day 57

144 145
 Day 70

Day 65 Day 66 Day 72

Day 68

Day 67 Day 73 Day 74

146 147
Day 77

Day 83 + 84
Day 78 Day 85

Day 86

Day 79 Day 82 Day 89

148 149
Day 91 Day 94

Day 96

150 151
152