Painter Janine van Zeeland is inspired by the meadow landscape around her home in Friesland’s northeast. Author Eppie Dam was impressed by her work in unusual colors and wrote 42 poems about it. They come together in the exhibition Een dier is ook maar een mens in De Schierstins in Feanwâlden.
Paintings and poems can be admired from Saturday 3 July to Sunday 15 August. The cultural and historical center De Schierstins is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 1.30 pm to 5 pm. The permanent exhibition Het Laatste Friese Torenkasteel and the Theun de Vriesroom are also open to visitors.
Most painters have an eye for cows and horses, but Janine van Zeeland is also struck by hares, ducks and moles caught in the garden. She even manages to capture flies in a beautiful painting. “The animals must look a bit clumsy and touching,” says the visual artist from Kollumerpomp. In addition, the unusual use and brightness of the colors stand out.
Janine van Zeeland (Coevorden, 1956) has lived in Northeast Friesland for 16 years, and before that was a teacher of visual art in Zwolle for 30 years. She was educated at the ABK Arnhem (1993) and took lessons with Ruud Venekamp, teacher at the art academy Minerva Groningen, and with painter Hendrik Elings.
The link with Eppie Dam is not only the inspiration he found in her paintings for his poems. He was born in 1953 in the same village where she lives now. He has even written poems in Pompsters, the local dialect related to the Groningen regional languages.
Eppie Dam, who currently lives in Sloten, is incredibly versatile as a writer. He published collections of poems and short stories, wrote biographies, children’s books, liturgical works and also wrote columns and reviews. In 2017 he received the highest literary award in Friesland, the Gysbert Japicxpriis for the collection of poems Fallend Ljocht.
Thanks to a crowdfunding campaign, images of the paintings and the accompanying poems have been bundled into the book Een dier is ook maar een mens, which is also available in De Schierstins. The book is published by Uitgeverij Wijdemeer.
