Description:

As you already know, I like to visit that favorite place of mine on Java, the old Dutch city of Malang . On this occasion I went together with a very good friend of mine, Peter Willems or as they say in French Pierre Guillaume, we have travelled through Bali and Java a few times together painting pictures as we go. This is a picture Peter insisted that I paint, normally I am much closer to the objects that I paint, but this time Peter insisted I paint a picture from a distance, so I said, “ok, give it a try and see what comes out of it”. It was a hot day and Peter who had decided not to paint, was sitting in the shade with cool drinks smiling and giving encouragement. It was a difficult picture to paint because of the perspective. The distance and the steepness of the embankment, with a small but fast flowing river, being in the rear of the kampong it was also used as an open sewer, so there are no people to be seen. This gave me that feeling of back street emptiness, we hadn't seen the front of the kampong, it is a very different, but a special view of Malang.This kampong is poor and so the houses are very small but at the top on the right is quite a large villa that I painted partially, this gave the kampong an atmosphere with a special twist to it.