In My Bathtub

This oil painting ‘Wet Dream (2009)’ started in my bathtub. Really! You don’t believe me? Let me explain. In 2009 my bathroom was finished and I was taking a bath. Due to lavender oil I dreamt away and saw a woman floating towards me. You know how this goes: me and beautiful models I encounter but never under water. Until now that is.

Under Water Theme

Actually, the painting became gradually. You see, in the first version of the painting she was flying in the air. However, I thought it to be too corny, so I changed the theme towards deep sea, much darker and mysterious. Now I come to think about it, I never did an under water theme and I thought I would be fun just to try it out. Besides that, my painting Reims (2009) was a surrealist one and I thought to do another bit of surrealism. There you have it, 2 ingredients for a great painting to come.

A Wonder Fish Stall

There is this wonderful fish stall in Mariahoeve, The Hague, where I live. Sometimes I go there and buy me some. Then I saw a wonderful candidate to incorporate: a wonderful and fresh mackerel. For quite some time I used it as a model. I kept in my fridge and let it defrost for 10 minutes. After that the dew disappeared and I could use it for 30 minutes. After that it went soggy and my cat Furia became restless. In total I used 3 mackerels because they tend to smell unbearable after heavy use.

Lots of Layers

The idea was to have them swim over my bathtub. This way they serve as a bridge between the ocean and my world. The other props came easy, just a matter of searching the internet. There it was, a school of blue wales, a submarine, sharks. The ones I like best are the tigers. They were from a zoo, diving into a pool biting at meat. All in all, I probably used 20 layers of Old Holland Blue Lake oil paint. The more vague the figures are, the more they are covered by more layers. Consequentely, there is a lot of depth and the viewer is offered a most intense blue experience.

Click here to read about the sale of this art work through saatchiart.com.

Oil on linen (100 x 120 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers

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