DAVID KUIJERS The grey area between art and design is where I like to be, combining expression with playfulness. To this end the painting on glass technique is especially well suited, resulting in a graphic look but with the option of adding seriousness, to taste. Painting for me has to do with being energized through both the process and the re-interpretation of the subject – and when viewers identify with this experience, through the work, it is all the more satisfying. David Hockney said “I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair.” Cape Town is unusual. It seems staged. Oceans and mountains conspire with the weather to create a dramatic and sometimes moody setting. It is a city with a view, an outdoors, a leisurely place, an evocative place. In short, a good place to paint. Through painting I can engage with this physical environment in ever new and fresh ways. For me, the city is an external departure point for a journey of unknown and tantalizing possibilities. At the end of every painting I am a little different. When I paint I leave for a place of exaggerated awareness, of relaxed concentration, a friendlier place. The visible results are not what Cape Town looks like, but an inkling of what it feels like. The images are for me, and hopefully for others, something positive and life affirming. Matisse, who lived through both wars, said that he aims for an art that is like a comforting influence, a mental balm, something like a good armchair in which one rests from physical fatigue.