1990s Amsterdam Diary

In the summer of 1991, Benjamin and Nancy traded homes for six weeks with Gerda and Peik, a couple of Dutch artists who lived in central Amsterdam. Benjamin set himself a project to take a walk each morning in a random direction to find souvenirs and images to incorporate in a series of mixed media, coloured drawings approximately A4 in size, some with bits of collage, lots of frottage, and occasional rubber stamping, to form a unique visual diary of his day of engaging encounters in the lively town.

… In another quarter the streets are lined by women who trade with their bodies. Adorned with symbols of the erotic they advertise their wares below painted faces—smiling, inviting, sexless. It is a capital like none other in the developed world, where the bicycle and the boat, not the car, are dominant. It is a big city packed with paradoxes and incongruities, where the busy tangle of street life full of colour, activity and pavement cafes, seem irreconcilable with the weight of its artistic tradition—powerful, understated, portraits of shadows and impeccable still life studies. Modern ephemera passes against a background of architecture. Ironically, such apparent inconsistencies generate a unique, exciting ambience. It is from these impressions, gathered from the corner of an artist’s eye, that my diary of images is drawn.

Benjamin wrote—

Visits over many years have made these streets familiar now. Yet my alien eye collects details and impressions, which might be overlooked by the native city folk. For me the common place is not mundane and the scene is ever shifting ... I plot the changes. Steadily a tide of graffiti builds and then retreats. Here in the home of such sublime art lies the ridiculous, amid order lies chaos, alongside religious devotion, stands tawdry eroticism. A shop window may contain minor works of art, the creation of a tradesman who has carefully assembled a tasteful scheme to promote his wares …

Rainy Day, Blue Jug Still Life, 1991

Ramok, 1991 (Unique version updated for a Christmas card 1993)

“27.7.91” (KitKat), 1991

Yellow Star Still Life, 1991

Jack of Hearts,1991

Tony Warner wrote in the November 1992, Arts Review—

…they are only a foot square, petite by his standards, and alive with colour. This is not the colour of the oil painter or the water colourist but the softer, more discreet colour of someone committed to drawing. Most of it comes from coloured pencils applied as if taking a rubbing from an object beneath. The soft caress of the pencil produces an almost ghost image, one that might come from an experience half remembered, or from a reflection in a rain-smeared window. Added to this is a discreet use of collage, applied not in a manner to shock the visual senses and to cause them to recoil but almost in a spirit of deceit …

Desire, 1991

Poster. Le Salo, 1991 (The famous gay cinema actually called Le Salon)