Els Devrieze - Bodies of Water: Betty White

This is a "3D canvas" with a thickness of 4 cm, the sides are painted and the painting can be hung on the wall.

Would you like to come and see this painting? You can do that on 15 and 16/07 at the group exhibition of ArtPoint in Ooidonk (for info see flyer at images) or by appointment in my studio in Niel)

About the painting:
"Bodies of water." A series of paintings about women symbolized as water. Why water? To begin with, from an ecological point of view, our waters, seas, oceans, are in distress. They are choked by plastic and pollution. Water is the most magical element on earth. It exists as a solid, liquid and gas. Water is life, fertility. All the water on Earth has been here since the beginning. Water can be soft and offer redemption, but it can also be a destructive force of nature that nothing can withstand. I have chosen admirable women from history who have also fought for their "right" to exist to represent our waters by giving their names to the paintings. This one was named Betty White
I was working on this work when this wonderful lady sadly died prematurely at the age of 99 - 17 days before her 100th birthday. The world was flooded with works of art in her honor, but it didn't feel right to me to send this work out into the world. I let it rest for a while and focused on the next water bodies first. The bright yellow kept drawing my attention from the corner of my studio. So I ended up flying back into it. The pressure was suddenly greater, instead of a celebration for her 100th birthday, this painting had to become a celebration for her entire life. I kept the yellow background, but the rest got a complete makeover. This Golden Girl really deserves a statue, Betty white won multiple awards for her acting and television work and is best known as a light-hearted comedian, but she did so much more than that. She is in the Guinness book of records as the longest running television career for a woman, wrote 7 books, was a great animal lover and animal rights activist. She opened the way for many women who followed her, and she was therefore very committed to equal rights. One story (of many) I will always remember was when in 1954 she put African-American tap dancer, Arthur Duncan, on stage in her show (which she hosted and produced herself). After the show, several stations threatened to stop broadcasting the show if Arthur stayed on board. After that, Betty bet Arthur as many times as she could. Brilliant right?! Another piece of golden advice from the youngest 99-year-old I can think of? "You're never too old for anything.”