db Waterman

With as main sources of inspiration the decay,climate change and how children should deal with it, I create contemporary mixed media collage artworks with an intrinsic urban-cool feel.

About db Waterman

I remember as a young girl, I loved to cut pictures out of magazines to stick on my school agendas, books, and even my bedroom door. Add to that the fascination I've always had with walls filled with old posters, peeling paint, scrappy billboards and weathered paint. Entirely unintentionally, I found a new way of working in which I feel pleasant and comfortable. What began as copying old walls with worn posters has grown into a large number of series with new visual narratives. Not simply eclecticism, but bringing together many seemingly disjointed story lines into a whole new story, my own personal story. Initially, there was one thing missing that is very important to me; the transparency that is normally only possible with the use of watercolor. The relentless layering of transparent watercolors is a challenge I would not want to miss, and after much trial and error I finally succeeded in making the collages as transparent as a watercolor. Every layer of paper, oil, acrylic, pencil, crayon, ballpoint pen, watercolor, ink, charcoal, and everything I use remains visible in the artwork. My formative years as an artist were spent studying at the Art Academy in Den Bosch, NL. Today, I regard myself as self-taught, having developed my own distinct style out of the nontraditional medium of collage.

I believe my body of work is characterized by my skill for reinvention. Having always loved the appearance of weathered walls plastered with peeling paint and old posters, I revive this aesthetic with hopefully a keen and professional eye. The creative objective of my work is to “make something beautiful out of dilapidation.” My tableaus explore the dissonance between old and new materials, intertwined in the most beautiful possible way to create dreamlike and melancholy images.
Kids inspire me. Their ability to transcend any given rotten situation is astounding. Playing tag in the ruins of a bombed Syrian city. Playing football in the most miserable neighborhoods. They are always looking for the light. They will save the future that our generations have really messed up, not even blaming us for it. If we only could keep the kid in ourselves a bit more, we wouldn’t be in such a mess. Art can help us to re-find our childlike innocence
I think that now more than ever, the recurring themes in my portfolio are highly relevant. My art depicts the current state of the world, and how our children grow up in an often unfair as well as deteriorating environment. Yet, it is precisely the children's ability to transcend difficult situations and find joy and light in the darkest surroundings that is the much-needed hope for the future. Sustainability is also integrated in my works through the materials I use. Most of these are materials have been repurposed to be used in my artworks.