A note for Collectors and art enthusiasts
I am Filomina Pawar, artist Eric G. C. Weets' partner, manager, representative, choose what you like to call me, from and in India.
On this page I have provided some information about the artist, his art works, his quest in creating, his inspiration and the present situation he is in. I have also mentioned the reason why I am hesitant to let go of the original works yet and so have made available signed, reproduction of the art works on archival canvas, should you be interested in collecting.
A bit about artist’s background.
Eric G. C. Weets is self taught, multidisciplinary, contemporary artist born in 1951. He left his country, Belgium, almost 25 years ago and is living in Asia, presently in India.
Weets wanted to be an artist, most probably from the day he is born. It was not the question of wanting he thinks, it’s just the way it is, if he wanted it or not. Weets is drawing since the age of three. He drew a little bit with everything that one can draw with, on everything one can draw on. For a very long time he believed that what he put on canvas and on paper was not good or important enough. It took him seriously long time to convince himself that what he created, was art.
Weets went on with living life and because he cannot sit much longer on one chair, life went sometimes a bit eccentric and bizarre but drawing and painting stayed an essential activity throughout. Many times he has asked himself why he has always painted? What is so important that he cannot leave putting things down on paper or on canvas? He never figured that out really and most probably he never will. The only thing he can say is he saw painting/drawing as something very important, from a very young age.
Artist’s quest
Weets’ quest was to create something unique and original in the painting medium. He did not see any point in copying or repeating something which already exists.
For a long time Weets searched, aiming to get something unique, something that he could say was exclusively his own. It took him almost a life time to achieve this goal. When he was 56 years old, he created the first work, an oil painting titled, “Painting Number One: 90 days from B to C: Life in a nutshell”, 2007, measuring 182 x 487 cm in India. Weets was happy with this work because he thought this work came close to what he wanted to express. So this website only displays his works since 2007 and not earlier canvas.
Inspiration for Weets’ work.
Human interactions inspire Weets’ work. It intrigues him to see that people, who basically come from one tribal group, can be so different, have such different lifestyles and beliefs, after so many thousands of years. He likes to observe the world from a distance and watch these chaotic relationships and interactions between people. Weets wanted to show the compactness, the intricate, complex interconnectedness, the differences of world population and how he looks at it. He wanted to show the complexity of everything and how ‘everything’ cannot live with or without each other.
Through these semi automatic drawings, Weets expresses how people are close to and distant from each other, simultaneously. He depicts, in more or less symbolic way, how one’s action influences the behavior of someone else. It fascinates Weets to see how complex and sometimes bizarre people behave on their own or with each other and how strong the past influences the present. He gets lot of inspiration from these complex, reciprocal actions and effects, for his work.
About the First oil painting, measuring 182 x 487cm, in India.
Inspired by his earlier pen drawings (the idea to make the pen drawings came about during the years when Weets was in India in the late 1980’s - after he saw the South Indian temples) he started drawing small figures and objects juxtaposed randomly, almost automatically, as they were flowing out of the drawing pen in late 1990’s. These chaotic looking pen drawings, when seen from a distance, look like grey abstract, the effect of which he compares to the earth, seen from space where you just see abstract patches of colors. Its only on close inspection the abstract begins to manifests itself in clearly defined details.
Weets felt most closest to these drawings but in an attempt to create an illusion of the entire world on one single surface, where the viewer is confronted with the immensity of all the aspects that makes the world, the pen drawings were falling sharply short because of their smaller sizes and the final result was nowhere close to what he expected. Intuitively, he felt that there was something missing.
After lot of experimenting in painting and a sabbatical of 5 years, from 2002 to 2007, Weets started working on a large scale canvas in 2007. After this long gestation period, when he started painting, Weets worked, wild enthusiast for 10 – 12 hours a day for 90 days. Everything that came up in his mind at that time, put itself on the canvas without his conscious involvement. He drew one line after another and these lines transformed into figures or objects. These figures are a combination of fragments of memories which became something new, something nonexistent till then. More than once, he surprised himself with what he saw emerging on the canvas. Weets likes to believe that this creative process partly went on in the subconscious. One thing is for sure, he did not think twice, redo or repair anything in this or the following works.
Why black?
Weets has never, ever, used black in his oil paintings when he was creating his multicolored works till 2002. He always has used the darkest of colors instead of black. For this painting in 2007, the artist wanted to use only black because:
Weets says, “I drew one line after another or I should rather say wrote the figures, without making any preliminary sketch, directly on the canvas with black oil paint. I wanted to put all the discoveries made in my mind without (or as less as possible) interfering in the process. What came up in my mind then, is what you see on the canvas. I think colors distract. Just black and white is direct, honest and the figures were put as and how they came - straight from the mind. By coloring or even shadowing, the link would have been broken."
And
"Black and white is the most simple, most pure, most clear and holds mysticism in it. When the black paint or ink touches the surface of the canvas, it cannot be removed, mistakes cannot be repaired. All what the hand drew, came straightaway out of the subconscious and I think direct line and a minimum of basic colors are the best ways to approach the subconscious with. All that I could do afterwards such as repairing or coloring is too much thought about and that is just what I wanted to avoid. I wanted to stay true to the original source and there I left it”.
Experiencing the impact of the work.
It is difficult to absorb the whole impact of this work at once. Therefore the artist compares this work with the earth.
If you stand 5-6 meters away from the painting, you will only see a large grey surface. It symbolizes the way we see the earth from outer space. Nothing looks to be there, nothing looks to be moving. Its only when one comes closer, details start to emerge, ditto in his paintings.
What Weets does in his work, is just the opposite of simplifying. He puts so much he can on one painting to show how close things are to each other. Some details are figurative some pure symbolic. One has to go close to examine what is in front. But when you are close to that part, the other part is beyond your view. Like if you are on one part of the earth, you cannot/do not have first hand clue of what is going on in the other parts.
To have a lot of experience with people, you have to travel a lot. The same way, to experience the fullness of the work, you will have to move from one side of the painting to the other. And to examine the whole painting, you will have to travel in (front of) it, in a manner of speaking. On closer inspection, you start observing the details, situations and see the interaction.
Blessing in disguise?
Midway while working on his second large canvas in 2007, Weets fell seriously ill. The disease has rendered him mostly immobile and dependent since.
Because of his quest to create something original and because it took him a long time to achieve that goal, Weets did not have many exhibitions. You can say that the action/process of painting and creating, was always more important to him than the end result. Most of the time Weets liked the work when he finished it but after a while he saw so many mistakes that he lost complete his interest in the work. It made that he never took care of his finished works. He just gave them away, threw them out, reworked or left them behind.
The nice thing on the whole story I can say is, from around 1997 he started liking what he did and saw some meaning in it. So slowly he stopped giving away, burning or throwing out his works but he still left quite a bit of stuff behind till 2002 and I have catalogued his works since 1998, the year we started living together.
Weets has no gallery representation, so no exhibitions. He has no track record, therefore no auction history. No collectors, so no sale. And on top of it, he stays in solitude because only then, he could concentrate on making his art works that he was making. The only way to reach the art public for his works now is through the internet and that is what I am doing for some time now.
In principle, the whole collection belongs in a museum. That is one reason I am also hesitant to let go of the originals at the moment. At least once the entire collection should be exhibited before it is scattered, I think. And thirdly, Eric is unable to paint now due to his bad eyesight, so there are only so many original works available.
Collecting
In the meantime, I have made available limited edition (250 worldwide) digital reproduction of few of his oil paintings on archival Hanhemüleh Monet canvas, should anyone be interested in collecting. Eventually, the whole collection will be available in limited edition. This way, collectors get a chance to enjoy the art work at a fraction of the cost and artist feels appreciated for his lifelong efforts.
Limited edition of 250, signed by the artist and numbered.
The limited editions are reproduced on archival Hahnemuhle Monet Canvas, 410 gsm, imported from Germany, printed in Mumbai. These are produced using pigmented UltraChrome K3 inks from Epson, on Epson printer 11880.
Certificate of authenticity is provided with each edition.
The Hahnemühle Certificate of Authenticity is designed to protect the security and genuineness of your limited edition art works and reproductions to reduce the risk of forgery.
Each certificate is made of premium deckle edged mould made paper with a Hahnemühle watermark and fluorescent security fibers. A serialized numbered hologram is affixed. A second, identically numbered hologram is then applied to the reverse side of the artwork.
The combination of certificate and hologram assures that each Certificate of Authenticity relates to one particular piece of art.
For international orders process time 7-10 days.
There is much to write about Eric and his art, should you be interest to know more, please do not hesitate to ask.
I sincerely thank you for your time.
Filomina Pawar.
20th Feb 2014.
Limited edition update:
12th Oct 2015.
Because Eric is no more, all the signed and numbered limited edition (of 250) of his paintings are discontinued.
19th Jan 2019.
On this page I have provided some information about the artist, his art works, his quest in creating, his inspiration and the present situation he is in. I have also mentioned the reason why I am hesitant to let go of the original works yet and so have made available signed, reproduction of the art works on archival canvas, should you be interested in collecting.
A bit about artist’s background.
Eric G. C. Weets is self taught, multidisciplinary, contemporary artist born in 1951. He left his country, Belgium, almost 25 years ago and is living in Asia, presently in India.
Weets wanted to be an artist, most probably from the day he is born. It was not the question of wanting he thinks, it’s just the way it is, if he wanted it or not. Weets is drawing since the age of three. He drew a little bit with everything that one can draw with, on everything one can draw on. For a very long time he believed that what he put on canvas and on paper was not good or important enough. It took him seriously long time to convince himself that what he created, was art.
Weets went on with living life and because he cannot sit much longer on one chair, life went sometimes a bit eccentric and bizarre but drawing and painting stayed an essential activity throughout. Many times he has asked himself why he has always painted? What is so important that he cannot leave putting things down on paper or on canvas? He never figured that out really and most probably he never will. The only thing he can say is he saw painting/drawing as something very important, from a very young age.
Artist’s quest
Weets’ quest was to create something unique and original in the painting medium. He did not see any point in copying or repeating something which already exists.
For a long time Weets searched, aiming to get something unique, something that he could say was exclusively his own. It took him almost a life time to achieve this goal. When he was 56 years old, he created the first work, an oil painting titled, “Painting Number One: 90 days from B to C: Life in a nutshell”, 2007, measuring 182 x 487 cm in India. Weets was happy with this work because he thought this work came close to what he wanted to express. So this website only displays his works since 2007 and not earlier canvas.
Inspiration for Weets’ work.
Human interactions inspire Weets’ work. It intrigues him to see that people, who basically come from one tribal group, can be so different, have such different lifestyles and beliefs, after so many thousands of years. He likes to observe the world from a distance and watch these chaotic relationships and interactions between people. Weets wanted to show the compactness, the intricate, complex interconnectedness, the differences of world population and how he looks at it. He wanted to show the complexity of everything and how ‘everything’ cannot live with or without each other.
Through these semi automatic drawings, Weets expresses how people are close to and distant from each other, simultaneously. He depicts, in more or less symbolic way, how one’s action influences the behavior of someone else. It fascinates Weets to see how complex and sometimes bizarre people behave on their own or with each other and how strong the past influences the present. He gets lot of inspiration from these complex, reciprocal actions and effects, for his work.
About the First oil painting, measuring 182 x 487cm, in India.
Inspired by his earlier pen drawings (the idea to make the pen drawings came about during the years when Weets was in India in the late 1980’s - after he saw the South Indian temples) he started drawing small figures and objects juxtaposed randomly, almost automatically, as they were flowing out of the drawing pen in late 1990’s. These chaotic looking pen drawings, when seen from a distance, look like grey abstract, the effect of which he compares to the earth, seen from space where you just see abstract patches of colors. Its only on close inspection the abstract begins to manifests itself in clearly defined details.
Weets felt most closest to these drawings but in an attempt to create an illusion of the entire world on one single surface, where the viewer is confronted with the immensity of all the aspects that makes the world, the pen drawings were falling sharply short because of their smaller sizes and the final result was nowhere close to what he expected. Intuitively, he felt that there was something missing.
After lot of experimenting in painting and a sabbatical of 5 years, from 2002 to 2007, Weets started working on a large scale canvas in 2007. After this long gestation period, when he started painting, Weets worked, wild enthusiast for 10 – 12 hours a day for 90 days. Everything that came up in his mind at that time, put itself on the canvas without his conscious involvement. He drew one line after another and these lines transformed into figures or objects. These figures are a combination of fragments of memories which became something new, something nonexistent till then. More than once, he surprised himself with what he saw emerging on the canvas. Weets likes to believe that this creative process partly went on in the subconscious. One thing is for sure, he did not think twice, redo or repair anything in this or the following works.
Why black?
Weets has never, ever, used black in his oil paintings when he was creating his multicolored works till 2002. He always has used the darkest of colors instead of black. For this painting in 2007, the artist wanted to use only black because:
Weets says, “I drew one line after another or I should rather say wrote the figures, without making any preliminary sketch, directly on the canvas with black oil paint. I wanted to put all the discoveries made in my mind without (or as less as possible) interfering in the process. What came up in my mind then, is what you see on the canvas. I think colors distract. Just black and white is direct, honest and the figures were put as and how they came - straight from the mind. By coloring or even shadowing, the link would have been broken."
And
"Black and white is the most simple, most pure, most clear and holds mysticism in it. When the black paint or ink touches the surface of the canvas, it cannot be removed, mistakes cannot be repaired. All what the hand drew, came straightaway out of the subconscious and I think direct line and a minimum of basic colors are the best ways to approach the subconscious with. All that I could do afterwards such as repairing or coloring is too much thought about and that is just what I wanted to avoid. I wanted to stay true to the original source and there I left it”.
Experiencing the impact of the work.
It is difficult to absorb the whole impact of this work at once. Therefore the artist compares this work with the earth.
If you stand 5-6 meters away from the painting, you will only see a large grey surface. It symbolizes the way we see the earth from outer space. Nothing looks to be there, nothing looks to be moving. Its only when one comes closer, details start to emerge, ditto in his paintings.
What Weets does in his work, is just the opposite of simplifying. He puts so much he can on one painting to show how close things are to each other. Some details are figurative some pure symbolic. One has to go close to examine what is in front. But when you are close to that part, the other part is beyond your view. Like if you are on one part of the earth, you cannot/do not have first hand clue of what is going on in the other parts.
To have a lot of experience with people, you have to travel a lot. The same way, to experience the fullness of the work, you will have to move from one side of the painting to the other. And to examine the whole painting, you will have to travel in (front of) it, in a manner of speaking. On closer inspection, you start observing the details, situations and see the interaction.
Blessing in disguise?
Midway while working on his second large canvas in 2007, Weets fell seriously ill. The disease has rendered him mostly immobile and dependent since.
Because of his quest to create something original and because it took him a long time to achieve that goal, Weets did not have many exhibitions. You can say that the action/process of painting and creating, was always more important to him than the end result. Most of the time Weets liked the work when he finished it but after a while he saw so many mistakes that he lost complete his interest in the work. It made that he never took care of his finished works. He just gave them away, threw them out, reworked or left them behind.
The nice thing on the whole story I can say is, from around 1997 he started liking what he did and saw some meaning in it. So slowly he stopped giving away, burning or throwing out his works but he still left quite a bit of stuff behind till 2002 and I have catalogued his works since 1998, the year we started living together.
Weets has no gallery representation, so no exhibitions. He has no track record, therefore no auction history. No collectors, so no sale. And on top of it, he stays in solitude because only then, he could concentrate on making his art works that he was making. The only way to reach the art public for his works now is through the internet and that is what I am doing for some time now.
In principle, the whole collection belongs in a museum. That is one reason I am also hesitant to let go of the originals at the moment. At least once the entire collection should be exhibited before it is scattered, I think. And thirdly, Eric is unable to paint now due to his bad eyesight, so there are only so many original works available.
Collecting
In the meantime, I have made available limited edition (250 worldwide) digital reproduction of few of his oil paintings on archival Hanhemüleh Monet canvas, should anyone be interested in collecting. Eventually, the whole collection will be available in limited edition. This way, collectors get a chance to enjoy the art work at a fraction of the cost and artist feels appreciated for his lifelong efforts.
Limited edition of 250, signed by the artist and numbered.
The limited editions are reproduced on archival Hahnemuhle Monet Canvas, 410 gsm, imported from Germany, printed in Mumbai. These are produced using pigmented UltraChrome K3 inks from Epson, on Epson printer 11880.
Certificate of authenticity is provided with each edition.
The Hahnemühle Certificate of Authenticity is designed to protect the security and genuineness of your limited edition art works and reproductions to reduce the risk of forgery.
Each certificate is made of premium deckle edged mould made paper with a Hahnemühle watermark and fluorescent security fibers. A serialized numbered hologram is affixed. A second, identically numbered hologram is then applied to the reverse side of the artwork.
The combination of certificate and hologram assures that each Certificate of Authenticity relates to one particular piece of art.
For international orders process time 7-10 days.
There is much to write about Eric and his art, should you be interest to know more, please do not hesitate to ask.
I sincerely thank you for your time.
Filomina Pawar.
20th Feb 2014.
Limited edition update:
12th Oct 2015.
Because Eric is no more, all the signed and numbered limited edition (of 250) of his paintings are discontinued.
19th Jan 2019.