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Cosy Monster Portrait
Artist Rob Birza (1962)
Title Cosy Monster Portrait
Year 1999
Material Egg tempera on linen
About the work This painting depicts a monster with human-like features. This monster expresses emotions and almost seems to disappear into the background due to the thin layers of paint. As a result, it is not exactly a frightening figure. Birza made this painting after seeing TV footage of the Yugoslav wars during the 1990s. He depicted the anxious and heavy feelings these images evoked in him in a series titled Cosy Monsters from Inner Space. By making the monsters less gruesome, he tried to exorcise these negative feelings.
About the artist Birza's paintings and sculptures bring together a variety of styles, materials and references. For example, he combines references to comic books with references to famous works of art. Or he incorporates flea-market finds into his work. Birza developed this colourful style in response to the seriousness of many modernist and abstract artists who preceded him. His style appealed to many people and he quickly made a name for himself after graduating in 1985 from the Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving St. Joost in Breda. Subsequently, he was artist-in-residence at Atelier ’63 in Haarlem (now De Ateliers in Amsterdam).
In the collection Acquired in 1999. De Nederlandsche Bank also acquired 12 other works by Birza, mostly paintings. Although all these works are quite colourful, they all differ in style. Together, these paintings present a pleasing overview of Birza’s oeuvre. De Nederlandsche Bank focuses specifically on the coherence between works in its art policy.
