The development of the paintings I have made since 1968 can be compared with Ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail. The works can be arranged in three episodes.
In November 1972 I complete De drie Marguerites. The introduction to a poetic world of delusion that is influenced by literature in particular. For ten years Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is to dominate my work. During this period she increasingly represents my alter ego which is trying to put would-be reality in perspective in a bright, classical composition of surrealist settings.
In the early eighties I say goodbye to Alice. The paintings are becoming more and more expressionist and complex in character. They are the windows looking out on a hermetic universe of stratifications in which - in addition to literature - history of art proves to be a major source of inspiration.
In Waiting for the Barbarians Alice eventually returns. Resigned and melancholy, she appears in a world that fits in perfectly with the atmosphere of the paintings that originated thirty years earlier. It is here in Peter Pan's Neverland that she meets Pinochio, representative of the lie. An unmistakable danger is lurking in the bushes of the lost children's paradise.
All things considered, I regard myself as a broker in mirages. Social relevance is foreign to my nature. However, sometimes reality is horrid to such a degree that I simply must stir the poetic chord that is hidden deep down in the cavern of my heart. By way of consolation and diversion. This is the task that I have set myself in this vulnerable life that I regard as a miracle in spite of everything.
Arie van Geest
August 25th, 2005
Waiting for the barbarians, 2002-2004 Oil, tempera on canvas, 130 x 160 cm
Private collection
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