Henk

I met Henk many years ago, when I still lived in Amsterdam. I had become a member of a gay sportingclub called Tijgetje, and wanted to play basketball there. I had played basketball before, but had been annoyed with the machismo (and frankly; homophobia) vibrant in that environment, and so was really happy I had found an openly gay club. Henk was also a basketball player there.

I got along well with Henk, he was the sweetest guy imaginable. He was deaf, which seemed to cause challenges with others, who had a hard time adapting to another way of communicating. I found out that as long as I made sure I looked Henk in the eyes and spoke calmly, there really was no problem at all.

Henk came from a challenging background. He had grown up in a very conservative, Christian family, and at some point he was even sent to a "conversion camp", in an effort to "cure" his homosexuality. I couldn't imagine how tough growing up like that must have been, but I admired Henk's continued positive outlook on life. Definitely a gay life, I am happy to say.

He was one of the very first who got a so-called Cochleair implant, a little microphone attached to the skull and connected to an electrode placed in the ear. People at first responded puzzled on the little round box sitting on the side of Henk's skull, but it really helped him out. He had never presented his deafness as a handicap or anything, but now he didn't have to worry about that anymore

We stayed in touch, even after I left Tijgetje and Amsterdam. Over the years Henk has been able to shape his life the way he wanted it, and I always admired him for it. The connection I felt with him, and which I still feel, definitely qualifies for an "Ontmoeting" (Meeting).

Henk is an awesome needleworker. So it was an obvious choice to try and depict him in the context of Arachne, a lady from an old Greek myth, who was so good at handicraft that the goddess Athena was interested in a contest with the lady. Athena lost the contest and got so angry that she turned Arachne into a spider (hence the name arachnids!) -that way Arachne could at least still live in the product of her own handiwork.

Another take on the Arachne myth, this time with the goddess Athena prominently present.

I always loved how Henk maintained his trust in love, no matter what life threw his way. So here he is as Cupid, with his love Psyche on the background. It is not a mischievous Cupid, that wouldn't fit Henk -I needed a sense of innocence.

Another upbeat image of Cupid. I felt the need to go more "pop" with this one.

Darker than the first two, both in colourscheme and atmosphere, I felt this version of Cupid still fit the series of Henk. There are enough references to childhood and/or childishness to keep this Cupid away from the sometimes rather misbehaving and troublesome Cupid from the myths.

Henk is really creative. Not only is he a master in needlework, but he is also an amazing photographer, and he recently picked up painting -and he turns out to be quite good at that too. So it made sense to depict Henk as Apollo, the god who ruled the arts. I took the famous statue of Apollo of Belvedere, a Roman statue which was rediscovered around 1500 and since then became the epitome of beauty. Here Apollo is indoors, with references to Henk's paintings and drawings used in the image.

Again the Apollo of Belvedere, this time outdoors -in the courtyard of the Vatican Museums, where the actual statue can be found. Here I was even able to hide some of Henk's needlework in the image.

Once again an image of Apollo, this time based on a group of statues in Caserta, Naples. The original shows the god being taken care of by the muses, I decided to let Henk be Apollo, while he looked after himself as the muses.

Henk was always very ambitious, at times he could be fanatic. One of the reasons I left the basketball club was that they started playing in a competition, which made it literally too competitive for me. Henk kept going and went much further. So obviously I had to depict him as Nike, the goddess of victory. I used the famous statue of the Nike of Samothrace, now in the Louvre. I like how Henk's body mimics the shape of the Nike of Samothrace. The weird wobbly symbol above his head is actually a version of the logo of Ironman, the triathlon organization. Henk did the triathlon for several years too.

Henk as Priapus, the Roman god of fertility and the male member. Traditionally depicted with an enormous penis. I wanted to make this image to depict how Henk conquered his sensuality and sexuality, despite the many challenges he had to conquer.

I felt I needed to do something with Henk's deafness, so I looked into ancient mythology to find a god or goddess connected to the ear, hearing, sound. I wasn't able to find him/her. So I looked further and found the god Heimall, a germanic deity who was well known for his absolute hearing. He was born in the surf and his hearing was so good that he could hear the grass growing! The surf is there, the grass is there, and the god certainly is listening.