Or trees on a houseboat. Or put a cow on a canal cruise. You’d be drawing in space. And basically that’s what Peter Vink did, on the Magere Brug and the Amstelsluizen river locks in the background. Although he didn’t use a marker pen, but lines of pure light. And Peter’s lines follow existing contours. Not just of the bridge, but also the white levers of the lock complex to its rear. As a result, the two monumental structures are linked together, and the bridge seems a lot larger than it actually is. In a sense, it’s almost as if Peter has ‘completed’ the bridge. At least, that’s what it looks like to me: this new collection of diagonal lines. Weird though… because usually, you draw on a flat surface – whether it’s a piece of paper or a computer monitor. Still, Peter’s light drawing also takes shape on a flat surface. The fact that it nevertheless appears to be three-dimensional is due to those diagonal lines. They add depth to the image. But that’s an illusion.
Fun fact
Last year, Peter Vink made an artwork for the Mr. J.J. van der Veldebrug near NEMO Science Museum Amsterdam. In this work, he traced the bridge diagonals in bright white light, extending these triangles upwards and downwards into the water. As if he wanted to ‘bring back’ the lines that the bridge’s architects had erased after working on its design.
