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11/19/2004: "Tenderness and delicacy." by Monique Veyt
In March 2004 I went to Mongolia. A Mongolian Art-critic had seen my work on his Art-Travel trough Europe and invited me to exhibit in his country.There was not enough time to make a solid preparation, to frame the paintings and to send them to Mongolia. So, very intuitively, I choose some smaller ones, put them on the bottom of my subcase and took the airoplane to Ulan Bator.
On the opening ceremony there were biscuits, fruit, a kind of sweet white sprinkling wine, romantic music and a very nice people. Among them a lot of artists who invited me to visit their studios and houses, what I did, during the next two weeks. I got flowers from a young girl who dreams of becoming an ambassador for her country and from a nice and handsome Japanese man I met on the airport. And again people liked my paintings and began to communicate about their lives, feelings and desires.
There was a Mongolian man who was extremely fascinated by two of my paintings – I put them together, as a whole-. He told me what he was seeing in it. I did not understand it very well, it was about a man and about a woman … about a man who wanted to go and about the beauty and the femininity of the woman on the other sheet (while my paintings are totally abstract!)
All the evening he invited other visitors to have a look at it and he was sharing with them his fascination for these two, for this whole of two paintings.
Later on, most of people already were gone, we sat around the table: he, a younger woman who was with him and me.
The man again looked at the two paintings and began to tell.’ I am a married man’ he said ‘my wife is ill and lives most of the time in a hospital. I live with my children. I take great care of them, and I also take care of my wife. But for my own happiness I also need a girlfriend with whom I can share things, emotions, joy and intimacy. This (the younger woman) is my girlfriend…’
I was very touched by his story. Tears came into my eyes. In my own country I had been involved in an analogue story and I had shared extremely wonderful and refined feelings with a precious friend who lived almost the same history as this Mongolian man.
I must have painted it…. Yes, ‘tenderness’ and ‘delicacy’, that’s what it was.
Unconsciously I had painted it. Unconsciously I had given these paintings the names ‘tenderness’ and ‘delicacy’. Unconsciously I had put them in my subcase to Ulan Bator.
And in this totally different world another human being had recognized it. He had ‘looked’ and ‘listened’ with his heart. And his soul recognized, enjoyed, yes celebrated her own ‘tenderness and delicacy’ and his choice for life!
…. Let this little writing be a celebration, a celebration of tenderness and delicacy and of all the beautiful feelings human beings are able to!
With love and respect for life in all its beauty and diversity,
Monique Veyt
www.moniqueveyt.be
