Bart Drost

For his exhibition 'bladgoudjongens - deel 1', Bart Drost had his 'triptych with the artist at a very young age' from 1987 undergo an irreversible metamorphosis. Before he painted the photos in the triptych with gold paint, he photographed the triptych in its entirety and in 2023 he zooms in and photographs 121 portraits within the 'old' triptych.
He freely draws these portrait photos with pencil in size 12x12 cm. He then examines the same photos a second time and draws them with fat chalk on panels of 23x23 cm. The 121 crayon portraits are the starting point for the project 'who I was'.

Drawing a series of 121 portraits is one thing. But then? What, why and why? Bart Drost increasingly seeks exchange with others through his work. He wants to involve others in his work; he literally pulls the other into his work.

He invites you to go back to your own childhood years. Who were you when you were a boy of about 10, 12, 16 years old? In which portraits from this series do you recognize your young self? 9 portraits from the series then provide an impression of the early years.

What happens if you take photos of printed matter and then zoom in on those photos and re-photograph the resulting image? Sometimes it can be traced back to what the original image must have looked like. But more than once it is guesswork. But nevertheless, these photos in together with memories of his own younger years inspired Bart Drost to create 121 colorful drawings. New portraits of nameless boys between the ages of approximately 10 and 16 were created using grease chalk.

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