Art Games Ealing Big Print

My name is Kees Wattjes.I was born in 1951 in Rijswijk, a small town near the Hague, Holland.I come from a long line of artists.Writers, poets, architects, painters, and photographers we had all of them in the family.That I suppose has had its effect on me.StartingI started studying art approximately in 1968,as we know it was a very good year.1975 and onwards I consider myself a professional.Due to the fact that my Grand Father, the architect, was a close friend with some artistsfrom the Dutch movement De Stijl we had some Modern paintings and furniture when I grew up.Abstract Art 1975-1995It got me interested in De Stijl and BAUHAUS and the American answer to that between the fifties and the seventies.You know Barnett Newman, Rothko, Stella,I developed my own reaction to this, I describe it as an intercontinental cultural conversation.In the early nineties I lost interest in abstract art , because in Holland it became very commercial.Destruction and construction 1995-1999In this period a large part of the city The Hague, were I live, was boarded upHole streets from different periods, 19th as well as 20th century buildings.That attracted my attention and I went to work with that strange phenomenon.I started to photograph and paint them, I also organized excursions to this surrealistic entity.this period helped me a lot, in thinking was is identity?I mean of the artist as well as the artwork. A house or block of Flats were the living function had been terminated by bricking upthe windows and the doors, is a giant 1:1 size representation of that of that houseor in other words an artwork.The Secret Museum 1998-1999I was offered the possibility to work in a house which was to be demolished.As a matter of fact is was an old governmental office were civil servants got there medical check ups.I had 25 rooms a canteen and 2 L shaped corridors to myself.Approximately 500 metres wall it was huge, like a museum.So I called it The Secret MuseumAs an answer to all the prestiges Museums that were built all over Europe at that time.It was never open for my own use and art only.When the word came that it had to be demolished I opened it for one day only.The press covered that well, some of the clips from the Telly I put on Youtube.Lrt cst moi! And Secret Fame 1999-2005When the Secret Museum was closed I went to the UK for a short Holliday, to Brighton to be precise, I think it was February 1999.I left my camera at home , in Holland.