After my son Jelmer died I started painting like crazy. I had to vent my sorrow and making sculptures didn’t provide the release I needed at the time. I quickly mastered painting with a spatula. In my case it turned out rough and pasty.

This painting is heavy. I made it during those black days. It contains a cut out picture of an eye – the well-known EYE of God like the framed copy on my grandmother’s kitchen wall. In the back of my mind was that burning question: God, where were you when things went wrong? Entirely left to my own devices, I managed to turn Jelmer’s death into something of beauty. I consider this to be the most precious painting I have ever made.