ANV

All posts in painting

09Sep2018

Artist Residency in old mine building Beringen

In Art, Artist Residency, Limburg, painting by AnV / 09/09/2018 / Comments are closed

part 1: The most beautiful and blackest pigment, comes from …
part 2 : Coal preparation plant Beringen
part 3 : Artist Residency in old mine building

An Vanderlinden during her Artist Residency in the coal washing plant of Beringen
When I wrote about my visit to the coal preparatioin plant in Beringen at the end of March, I was not able to tell you everything. Now I am. Well, almost everything ;-)

In love with the coal preparation plant

As I wrote at the time, I am really crazy about mine buildings. I love that atmosphere, the space, the mysterious light … the whole history of it gives so much inspiration. Whenever I am in such a building, I just want to stay there and paint. During my tour of be-MINE, I fell so much in love with the release floor, that I said that aloud. “Then you have to submit an application”, was the answer.

Permission Artist Residency

I asked permission to make paintings on the release floor for a number of months, with the coal paint I was developing. The Beringen coal would eventually be processed at the place where it was originally brought up.

About 3 months after I officially asked my question, I received permission from be-MINE. Very exceptional, because normally that area can not be used without supervision. Sometimes dreams come true.

Isolation

The agreement contained some conditions, including that I should not receive visitors. This for safety reasons. Press / media attention was allowed in the end, as you noticed in a previous message. At first I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But once at work, I was happy, even very happy, that no one could come to disturb. I was happy that I was not allowed to share stories and photos here and on social media. That gave me the peace I needed to focus solely on my paintings. I started to paint almost daily, often on weekends. From morning till evening. For 4 months eventually. It was very, very intensive, but oh so blissful.

Follow the report

Every day I took photos, and occasionally I wrote something to be able to report afterwards. As from October 1, I start here, and on instagram and facebook, to show you what happened during these 4 months.

My story is told in February. At that time, you can come and see my paintings in real life. They will be exhibited from February 10 to March 3, 2019, in cultural center Casino Beringen (Belgium). Save the date!

26Jul2018

Charbon de Beringen : Artist Residency in coal washing plant

In Art, painting by AnV / 26/07/2018 / Comments are closed

You already knew that I make paint from coal, since you’re following this blog.
The end of march, I revealed that I’m working with local coal to make the darkest black paint.

But what I didn’t told you yet, is that I was preparing my Artist Residency at that time. For 4 months, I had the most beautiful, inspiring studio I can imaging.

Local TV station TVL came to pay me a visit
https://www.tvl.be/nieuws/kunstenares-maakt-schilderijen-in-oude-mijngebouwen-beringen-62730

so did the internetgazet:
http://www.internetgazet.be/an-vanderlinden-schildert-met-steenkool.aspx

Both links are in Dutch, but you’ll get the picture.

My eternal thanks to be-MINE for giving me permission and their kind support,
and a very big thank you to all former miners who dug up this beautiful coal.

28Mar2018

Coal preparation plant Beringen

In Art, painting, project coal by AnV / 28/03/2018 / Comments are closed

part 1: The most beautiful and blackest pigment, comes from …
part 2 : Coal preparation plant Beringen
part 3 : Artist Residency in old mine building

Mine shaft Beringen - AnV.be So I saw coal lying on a place that I could not reach, and popped the question, to be-MINE. If I please could collect some coal, because I want to use it in my paintings? Turned out they already knew my work, so that was allowed. Even more: I got a whole guided tour through the buildings, on the way to better coal than the one I had seen from the outside.

I’m really crazy about these old coal plants, so I was high for at least a week afterwards, from all the places I’ve seen with a safety helmet on my head.
Actually, I’m high again whenever I look at the photos I made that day. Even though most of them failed because of being taken too quickly and enthusiastically :).

But the best is yet to come: the coal, because that’s what it was all about. Coal from Beringen, the city my parents originated from. Coal from the coal mine in whose hospital I was born.

I got a few “types”, different thicknesses of coal. On sight this coal does not really look black, it is not really dark. “That’s dust,” I think, so I start by washing the smallest coal. Funny though, washing coal that you have received from a coal-washing plant. Even funnier was that the rinsing water was so thick that it did not run through the sieve, but remained on top of it. It looked like mercury. This is probably due to the magnetite that was added to the water in the coal washing plant in order to separate the coal from the stones, but I deviate.

Coal from the coal preparation plant of Beringen - AnV.besmall pieces of coal from Beringen - AnV.be

So I washed the coal, and let it dry. It still looked as light. Afterwards I grinded it to powder, added some products and rubbed it into paint.
Pigment paste made with coal from Beringen - AnV.beMy blackest coalpaint - AnV.be

Black paint. But really black paint. Much blacker than the color of the dry coal suggests that it could ever be. So black, that I started to wonder …

Do you remember the tests I was talking about yesterday, to make paint as black as possible? Guess what else is blacker than coal that has been dulled by mixing chemical products?
Exactly: coal from Beringen. :-)

Blackest coalpaint tests by An Vanderlinden

Since then I have been “slightly” possessed by this coal from Beringen. I stand up with it, and I go to sleep with it. Hours and hours and hours I’ve spent on testing, because with this, I really want to paint. I’ll tell you more about that soon. I am still trying to summarize it …. and that’s a hell of a job itself ;)

25Mar2018

The most beautiful and blackest pigment, comes from ……

In Art, painting, project coal by AnV / 25/03/2018 / Comments are closed

part 1: The most beautiful and blackest pigment, comes from …
part 2 : Coal preparation plant Beringen
part 3 : Artist Residency in old mine building

I talk a lot about paint over here, which I’m making from pigment-ground coal. But what I didn’t told you yet, is with which coal I’m doing all these tests. Not all coal is the same you know. Far from.

From Semple’s Black over coal from Zolder to weird tests with purchased coal.

kibble coal from Zolder - anv.beMy collaboration with Semple’s search for the blackest paint possible for everyone (except Anish Kapoor), was the beginning of my “coalpaint story”. I started experimenting with coal from Zolder. That paint was dark brown. Then I tried anthracite. The result was a neutral black paint. Mixed with Semple’s Black 2.0, it was the blackest existing paint. Until here you were up-to-date.

But I wanted to make the paint more black. The more light something absorbens, the darker it seems. A matt surface absorbens light. But the antracite I used, shines. A shining pigment reflects the light in stead of absorbing it. I should be able to fix that…

tests manipulated coal pigment- AnV.be

Fix it, like in: trying to make the coal mat. For this I did the most idiotic tests: Mixing coal with White Spirit, with turpentine, with Ammonia, with … all unhealthy stinking products, which deprived the coal of its luster. I transformed the matted coal into paint, hoping to get the black paint even blacker. And that worked. The difference between the paint results was by far not as big as the difference between dry pigment, but it was there. A lot of hassle. And really not healthy. Good for a test strip, not for producing.

But because of the color difference between Zolder’s coal and that of the purchased coal …

I became very curious about what color the coal of Beringen would give. Below the washing plant, I could see piles of coal, which I would really like to have. But the site was closed with fences, and there was a warning sign that there’s camera surveillance. Damn.

If there is something that I learned in 2017

then it is, that if I really want something, I just have to dare to ask. The answer is surprisingly often yes, and I am incredibly happy about that.
The rest you can read tomorrow :-), in part 2.

24Nov2017

Black Friday?

In Art, painting, project coal by AnV / 24/11/2017 / Comments are closed

Oh well, that’s just an ordinary day in my studio :-)

Black paint tests AnV.beBlack paint tests AnV.be

So yes, I’m still trying to create the nicest black. I have a very beautifull, very dark one, with a velvet structure. I absolutely love it. And it’s really really black. Now I’m trying to find the best way to produce it, because I have big plans for next year, and I’ll need a lot of this paint.

08Jul2017

Exposition “Heritage” in Casino Waterschei, Genk

In Art, exhibitions, painting, project coal by AnV / 08/07/2017 / Comments are closed

Exposition Heritage in Casino Waterschei, GenkInvitation Expo heritage Mine-Art vzw

This picture was taken a week ago. In meanwhile there are many more works on the Mine-Art groupshow “Heritage”, but you have to go Casino Waterschei to see them.
About 70 different artists made a new artwork about the Heritage theme. The blurry painting in front, is my new painting. It’s not blurry in real life ;-)

OPEN: July 2-17 ’17
Sa-Su : 10-18h | Tue-Fr : 13-18h
Casino Waterschei, André Dumontlaan 2, 3600 Genk

20Jul2017

Blacker than any black acrylic paint so far: Black 2.0 and coal.

In painting, project coal by AnV / 20/07/2017 / Comments are closed

A blacker black part 2. As I wrote in part 1, Semple’s coworker asked me if I had already made something with my coal paint. I was working on a few pieces, sent some intermediate pictures and worked like mad to demonstrate outcomes. I managed to finish them a couple of weeks ago.
But it’s difficult to show the result. A photograph does not reflect how dark, how matt that paint is. Therefor I also made videos, but they’ve been made with the same small camera (no reflex). It continuously wants to add light.

Paint with coal from Zolder

AnV - Y3 - 40x40cm studio shot: painting with black 2.0 and coal paintI made this painting with paint I made with coal from the last Belgian coalmine, Zolder; and some Black 2.0. I attached a little ceramic ‘coal vessel’ as in my ceramic Saint Barbara’s. In real life, with moderate light (*) and from a little distant, you don’t see there’s something attached to the canvas, it just seems to be a circle.
I explain which paints I used in the different parts of this canvas, in the video below. Please select the 1080HD quality.
(Click here to watch the video directly in YouTube)

My blackest black piece of art so far

The blackest black acrylic paint on ceramic - Black 2.0 and coal - anv.beis this Saint Barbara, entitled “In the name of my father, my grandfather and their friends” f2/07, Acylics and coal on earthenware, An Vanderlinden, 2017.

You don’t want to know how many hours it took me before it looked like this. Black 2.0 is very matte, and very difficult to ‘enlighten’. The difference between plain acrylic and Black 2.0 is huge. To get transitions between light and dark, I mixed Black 2.0 with plain black paint, and with matte medium. But wet paint is shiny, so the result was never predictable. Layers, lots of layers until I had the desired effect. 

So the “luminous” parts in this work are plain black paint, diluted with ordinary mediums. Only for a few accents I used gloss medium, and some coal on top, but you can see that kind of details in the short video below (Click here to watch the video directly in YouTube – please select the 1080HD quality)


Black. I have a lot to say about it, so to be continued. But not now: I really need to work in my studio.

(*) If you put a spotlight on it, it seems to be grey. So there’s still a lot of work todo before Black 2.0 comes near nanoblack.

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