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Artist Ronald Ophuis (1968)
Title Flowers of Srebrenica IV
Year 2008
Material Oil on canvas
About the work
In this painting, there is mainly a lot not to see. Ophuis made this painting after visiting Srebrenica in 2003. Some years earlier, in 1995, more than 8,000 Muslim boys and men were murdered there. Their bodies were dumped in mass graves. This made identification of individual victims very difficult, if not impossible. It struck Ophuis that new plants and flowers were flourishing on these mass graves. Life went on as usual even though something terrible had taken place only a short time before. By painting these flowers, Ophuis depicts the harshness of this reality. At the same time, you can also sense something comforting in the scene.
About the artist
In his work, Ronald Ophuis depicts extreme violence and human suffering based on events from recent history. He regularly travels to conflict zones and speaks with victims, perpetrators and witnesses. His paintings are raw and realistic, not narrative or moralistic. He paints the light in an undramatic way, and he scrapes part of the paint away during the artistic process. This makes the painted surface look a bit like rough skin. Ophuis studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (1988-1990) in Amsterdam and the Akademie voor beeldende kunst in Enschede (1990-1993). He currently lives and works in Amsterdam.
In the collection
Acquired in 2008. De Nederlandsche Bank has two works by Ophuis in the collection. These works were acquired because they explore and reveal the impact of distressing events on society.