Vincent BAKKUM
1962, Finland
Self-taught painter Vincent Bakkum (born during the belle époque, raised by the sixties) has a way with women. His sought-after paintings capture the female form with elegance evocative of art nouveau and David Bailey’s chic fashion photographs from the ‘60s.
The women on his canvasses are young and beautiful, immortalised and idealised in elegant slender lines filled in with rich hues.
“Some of my ideas do come from the time when I was immersed in the world of fashion,” admits Bakkum, who spent many years working as a model. “But I think my fascination with youth has to do with confronting my own mortality: painting is my way of shouting out in colour against the ever-present rustle of death in the background.”
Inspiration comes from everywhere, from a Barcelona food market to the detail in a postcard. “I believe beauty springs from what you experience in your youth,” says the Helsinki-based artist, who grew up in Amsterdam. “And then you spend the rest of your life searching for those visual comforts, wanting to return home.”
"I'm in love with the 'object' woman, her graphic qualities. I fall for her outlines, her bone structure, the shadows under nose and lips, the knuckles of long slender fingers, the way the light falls on her calves, pitch-black, cheek brushing eyelashes.
The beauty of a woman to me is closely connected to the fruit, dead fish and stuffed birds I also enjoy painting; death and decay is another undeniable source of inspiration. Beauty doomed to rot, colours bound to fade.
Although there's no thin line between flourishing and decaying, I still try to catch that moment. I'm desperately trying to save what there's left to save. Life is short and nothing is more transitory than the short season of youth. She is the mirror in which I see myself decaying."
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