This documentary is about the artist Ad Merx. The original documentary is 45 minutes. Art is my passion, not only the creation but also to document other artists while they tell their story. Their reasons, passion or urge is what I want to capture. It’s well known that artists do not always tell you what you want to hear, but mostly what they want to ‘sell’. There is a logic in it, because in a way they tell their audience what they think art is all about or the romantics of being an artist. And that is what people like. But that’s not what I’m aiming for. I try to dig deeper because I think in the end the artist is the only one who can tell us what he had made.

The reason for me to do this was the documentary I found on Giacometti. He speaks about his art, his reasons and while talking he continues to work. His hands are always moving up and down the sculpture he’s working on. It gives a beautiful insight of his craftsmanship and on Giacometti the artist. This was exactly what I wanted to capture. But, I needed an artist and because my cousin is artist and my family always told me he was passionate, I thought of it as a good start. Apart from him being an artist, my great grandfather was sculptor and the idea rose to make a family documentary on the artists of my family.

The documentary on my great grandfather is still on the edit table. His particularly work, neo Gothic sculpture, is very bad conserved, so I still have to do some investigation. The documentary on my cousin is finished.

The documentary begins where he started as an artist. He shows his first works before the academy and during the academy. Than he takes us on a tour though his house, the gallery and the beautiful garden to tell the story of being an artist for forty years. My cousin is a well-known portraitist and in the documentary there is the scene where he draws the portrait of my husband Harry. I have split the screen in two parts. You can see the portrait growing and my cousin drawing at the same time.

In his studio he shows landscape paintings, results from travelling, to continue with a range of work created during his travels, notebooks etc. In short: it became a documentary of 48 minutes. I chose music from the French flute repertoire, which I play myself.