Portrait of Mark Rutte
saskia de rooy
Who is this man that is our Prime Minister? I wondered about this in 2015. With this question in mind I made his portrait, I had no idea. For me, making a portrait is an intimate process. I try to capture someones soul by observing, looking for the being that moves the muscles.
After the clay part of the piece was finished, it was time for the next step. First I tried to make a peanut-butter glaze but as an artist luck is on your side in sometimes, and I did not succeed. Then I put a shining glaze on to be able to make the head mirroring with a silver luster.
Silver luster is a brown substance when you brush it on. The moment I did I could see something special was happening. At that moment the Black Pete / Zwarte Pieten/ Black-face discussion was working its way through the Netherlands, as it still is now, getting to the resolution slowly. When you cover a face in another color, you hide it, your identity opens up somehow.
Now, this portrait is a mirror. And this is right, after all these years, I still don’t have a clue who this person Mark Rutte is, what moves him, what makes him sing.
