Bullitt-Series Background

Bullitt 5, acrylic on schoellershammer board 51 x 71 cm

A movie rented from a video-store. Even the box has a used and second-hand look. The tape itself has all the flaws associated with many viewings. The moving images seem to fall apart in back-lit shades, lines, undefined blobs of colour.

Photo’s taken from the television screen. The film processes different impressions.The prints show the real, not the perceived colours. It seems the eye compensates more than we know for information that has been lost.

The photograph projected with an episcope on the white surface. The handheld pencil traces outlines of dimly perceived shapes. Then follows the carefull reconstruction of the image with the airbrush, the interpretation of shapes and colours with pigments dissolved in water. A

new image comes into being. But how far removed is the end result from the original intentions of the filmmaker? How far has the mechanical process combined with the eye and hand of the painter taken the image from its origins?

The two pictures can now be compared. Above is the painting, below the cutout fragment of the original photograph from the television screen.