During my second exhibition about my project "Tour des poulets" in the StadsGalerij Breda in November 2008, a man told me that my work reminded him of something. Usually people then start mentioning artists that make similar work. But this time it wasn't an artist, it was a bird. My work reminded him of the Bowerbird (in Dutch: Prieelvogel).
This little bird makes beautiful, hut shaped nests and decorates it with organic carpets! He gathers leaves, berries and twigs and sort them on color to impress the females.
I'm still pretty obsessed by this tropical bird, once in a while it pops back in my mind and it fascinates me all over again. It's so strange and typical that a bird makes similar work as I do, our better said, I make carpets like bowerbirds.
The first ricecarpet I made, I made of cooked rice to feed the birds in my backyard on a more pretty way. After that I did the project "Tour des poulets", in which chickens ate my ricecarpets.
Even when it's not birds eating my work, they are never very far away in my work. If they are not in the pattern, I find them some were else in my work.
When I was looking at the recording of the try-out of Dance in a ricecarpet in Indonesia I noticed Barbara's tattoo coming into the frame after she danced away my carpet, a bird...
Maybe all the hours I spend with my grandfather spotting birds have something to do with it...
