Girls in Hawaii

Musicians can also be inspired by visual art. The artists of the Belgian band Girls in Hawaii talk about what the work of Hockney means to them.

Rinus Van de Velde 

With his gigantic charcoal drawings, Belgian artist Rinus Van de Velde is making a name for himself at home and abroad. We went to his studio in Antwerp to ask him how he was inspired by David Hockney, whom he calls 'the master of colours'. 

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld wrote a poem about a work by David Hockney. Curious about how the British painter inspired the Dutch writer?

You can read the full poem below the video.

A boy’s dream

Maybe it’s this: that I have looked deep into your delightful nudity,

squeezed the juice from your lips, which all that time you held at

the perfect height to be plucked, like a rowanberry so red, so much,

there is an ill-fated autumn concealed in every pose, how delicious

it is to dream up all your contours. Maybe it’s this: in the upper

chambers of your mind lines of poetry lie curled up asleep, your

armpits are hollows in the dunes where you can lie out of the wind

in the marram grass, it feels strange to me to love someone so much

but with you, everything is so suddenly, so starkly revealed.

Maybe it’s this: the fact you stand before me so casually filling

this portrait, as though we casually inhabited this world, trying

not to stare at the pubic area too much and at what sets me

ablaze, you provoke, you endear, where I went about it too      

ardently I have rubbed everything out. Maybe it’s this: that

even naked you turn out to be clothed, I can’t seem to lay bare

what I cherish exactly, and the idea that one day you will hang

in someone’s room makes me feel jealous, this is probably why

I keep your feet, your adorable toes, out of the picture. Maybe it

is this: that as long as I draw you I don’t have to find you, the look

in your eyes sees the helplessness in me, my fingers glide over your

legs, your thighs, I prise the moon from your navel. Maybe it is

this: that I have looked deep into your delightful nudity, squeezed

the juice from your lips, and if only it could stay like this, the tree,

the red, and you so sweet and too silent to respond to this dream.

By MARIEKE LUCAS RIJNEVELD © 2020

Translated by Michele Hutchison